The Wolf and The Slayer
by Jyx The Berserk
Summary: Guts finally has his chance to get revenge on Griffith, but is taken by surprise and sent away to another dimension. No demon will be safe from his blade. Rip and tear, until it is done.
1. Dammit Griffith

Forests are a strange place in Midland, full of rumor and magic, sometimes worse. Now was one such time. Guts had yet another sleepless night thanks to his mark, bleeding profusely on the back of his neck, and was standing with drawn sword in the middle of a moonlit clearing. Demons could be heard howling from the shadows, and a grin was firmly stuck on his face.

"You won't be laughing when you get the balls to stop hiding," he taunted quietly, bloodlust filling his head. "Quit making noise, come and get me." He didn't have to wait much longer for them to listen. With inhuman screeches, they charged the Black Swordsman, unable to resist the call of his hellish mark. Griffith may be the king of bastards, but Guts enjoyed slaying these demons every night.

Armor creaking slightly as he moved, Guts dashed between his targets with supernatural speed, seemingly unhindered by his impossibly massive sword. The demons couldn't keep up, and they fell in groups of twos and threes. Soon the whole horde lay dead under Guts metal boots, blood dripping from his sword and misting his hair, visible mostly on the shock of white at the front of his scalp. His eyes were wild and full of hate during the fight but slowly calmed down with his breathing as the sun rose. He inhaled deeply and held it for a moment, expelling it and the last vestiges of his anger towards the demons as he finally calmed down.

Guts looked around at the carnage, pleased with his work. He started walking along the road he'd been using to walk to the next city, hoping to find a nice tree to rest under that wasn't in the forest and sheathed his sword on his back as he moved. He was grateful to not have to worry about his friends this time around, as well as coming to closure with his own personal demons. That last thought reminded him of his talk with Casca after her sanity had been restored, and the emotional dam that had broken afterward.

That was the first time he'd cried since Gambino, and would probably be the last. That conversation had given him peace with his past, but he still craved demon blood, combat, and Griffith's head. He'd set out again after making sure everyone would be safe and well cared for, and gotten a few last minute gifts from the wizards and witches in the fairy place. His armor and weapon were given enchantments to never rust, and a few seals were permanently tattooed onto his back so that he could control his berserker armor, which would now heal damage as well as keep him held together.

"It won't kill you or drive you mad anymore, but the healing is slow, and there's a price," Shrieke had told him. "It relies on souls and blood, be it human, demon, or something else, to function. It can store energy if you go for a long period without battles, but it takes a lot to heal you, and I couldn't find a way to remove its original power." It was enough, more than enough for him, and he left happy. His lack of directions to Griffith was pissing him off, however, and that happiness was quickly burning away to be replaced by his anger.

Days of travel and nights of fighting passed, finding Guts standing at the gates of yet another city. He sighed, trying to dredge up some hope of finding answers before he entered. He decided to find a tavern first, for both questions and supplies. It was about as generic a rough tavern as you could get: old, full of questionable patrons, and staffed by tough and grizzled men. It seemed clean at the very least, more than you could ask for with similar places, so he got food and drink before asking around. His appearance and the rumors about him didn't help much, but he seemed to have finally found something.

"Griffith? Yeah, I know about him," said a tired worker in worn clothing, nursing a tall mug of alcohol. "Known as the White Hawk now. Supposedly he's got his own country somewhere north, people don't go hungry, and it's pretty much paradise."

"Sounds like somewhere you'd like to be," Guts stated, suspicious. "Why don't you go?"

"I'd be there already if I could get enough money for the trip. The roads there are too dangerous for anyone that doesn't know how to use a weapon though, so I'm trying to buy safe passage. Plus, with everyone leaving for that place, jobs have opened up a little bit, and I'm doing okay here." He eyed Guts' sword and caught a glimpse of his armor. "You look like you know how to fight… say, if I were to show you how to get there, would you take me with you?"

"You might not like that," Guts chuckled. "But yeah, I would."

"Then we have a deal. I'm Crishum," he said, shaking Guts' hand. The two set off later that day, mostly silent while they walked. When the sun started to go down, Guts told his companion to stay a quarter mile back on the road until he came back for him, and began walking away for his own safety, drawing his sword at the same time.

" _Dear God, that sword!_ " Crishum thought. " _I hadn't realized how big it was!_ _A sword like that… is this the Black Swordsman? What have I gotten myself into?_ " The second the light truly vanished, strange cries faintly echoed in the distance from where Guts had gone, along with a roaring battle cry and the sounds of a clanging sword. He waited fearfully for a few minutes, but exhaustion won out, and he set up his bedroll to sleep.

Crishum woke up the next morning to the sound of footsteps, and clanking armor falling to the ground. He looked over to a returned Guts, covered head to boot in varying shades of blood, exhausted as the sun came up. He noticed Crishum was awake but said nothing as he fell asleep in the weak morning light. Hopefully, he would explain what had happened later.

In the meantime, he thought to make breakfast and set some aside for Guts when he finished. Guts only slept for about an hour and a half before he woke up again, quickly eating the breakfast Crishum had made after thanking him. They got on the road again, and Crishum decided to get some answers.

"What happened last night, Guts?" He chuckled at the question, looking over his shoulder with a grin at Crishum.

"The thing I said you probably wouldn't like. It'll happen again tonight, and the next night, and so on. You're only ever going to hear what happens if you're lucky, and it's best if you don't know more. Let's just leave it at something you shouldn't poke your nose in, hnn?" Crishum nodded, and they descended into silence again. Sure enough, that night Guts told Crishum to stay behind as he went off, the sounds returned, Crishum went to sleep, and woke up to a filthy Guts taking his own turn at rest. It was a strange thing, but it seemed alright for the moment, and Guts at least wasn't rude when they talked. A few weeks of this routine passed, stopping every once in a while to get more food when they finally ran into trouble.

"This forest is…" Crishum said, not knowing how to describe what he felt.

"Cursed." Guts had said it. The forest was dark ahead of them, unnaturally so. No animals could be heard, and the wind didn't seem to do anything to the foliage. "Pray that we get through here in one day, you won't be able to stay behind this time." The only way to tell it wasn't night yet was by the scraps of sunlight piercing the tree leaves above them, scarce as that was, and quickly it became apparent that they wouldn't make it.

"So, what happens now?" Crishum asked, nervous as they stood in the failing day.

"You stay out of the way, and try to not get killed," Guts answered, drawing his sword. Crishum noticed that a mark on Guts' neck was bleeding. "Don't run away, and don't help me." A strange feeling came over Crishum, and cackling could be heard in the underbrush, mixed among sounds he couldn't place. Suddenly creatures that belong in nightmares charged forwards to Guts', and he let out a cry of rage that drowned out their cacophony as he ran to meet them head-on.

Crishum had never been so terrified in his life. He couldn't make sense of the scene before him. Guts' instructions echoed dimly through his head, and he tried to find a safe place to hide. Hours passed, Crishum hiding in a tree a short distance from the battle unable to sleep, and Guts shouting and hacking away at the flood of demons that came from every direction. Dawn broke, and the fight almost instantly stopped. Both Guts and Crishum slept where they were for as long as they could but eventually had to get back on the road.

A few miles of walking later they were still in the forest, and Crishum guessed it was time to break the silence.

"So… demons?" Guts hummed a confirmation. "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it myself. Why do they do that every night?"

"This piece of shit," Guts said, pointing to his brand. "Put there by Griffith himself, along with a few friends, some years ago. Same day I lost these." He knocked on his metal hand and gestured to his right eye. "You might say I have some unfinished business with the prick."

"Damn," Crishum said quietly, wondering how that battle went. "Is it alright if I ask how it all happened?"

"No." His tone brooked no argument, and it was immediately dropped. The silence went on until they exited the forest, and Guts left Crishum behind to fight demons again. Crishum never really got used to it, but he was at least able to sleep at night and make breakfast for them both as they traveled, trying to make it somewhat easier on Guts. It wasn't quite as safe a passage as he would have liked, but it was safer than going alone. One week after they left the forest, they found Griffith's city.

"I don't think I want to go in there now, what with your story," Crishum said, squinting at the white walls in the distance. "Though I might try to find a job somewhere nearby."

"Good choice," Guts said. They shook hands before they parted ways, and Guts marched the last few miles to the city. He did his best to not draw attention when he got close, hitching a ride in the back of a wagon to get in without alarms being raised. Stealth went out the window when he got close to the palace, however.

"State your business," a guard ordered, standing in front of the gate.

"I'm an old friend of Griffith's," Guts' said, slowly drawing his sword and grinning. "You're in my way." The guard drew breath to shout but was cut down before he could. Bloodlust lit his veins like fire, and the berserker armor sealed guts in a shell of rage. He sprinted through the palace, slaughtering guards and anything that set off his mark in his search for Griffith.

Griffith was standing in the hall of the dead when news reached him about the intruder, and he left to deal with Guts.

"So, you've finally come," he muttered to himself, an emotionless mask settling his features. "I've missed you, Guts." He summoned a witch to accompany him to the hall where he would meet Guts. They entered from opposite sides, one dark and soaked in blood, the other bright and almost angelic. Griffith drew his sword, and Guts drew breath for one word, shouting with every ounce of hate he had.

"GRIFFITH!" He charged as fast as lightning, shattering the stone tiles beneath him by sheer force alone. Their blades met in a flurry of sparks, screeching light deflecting clanging dark. Their dance was the epitome of opposites: wolf against hawk, grace versus power, god battling man. Unnoticed in the corner, the witch prepared a spell, weaving magic between her fingers like a spider. Griffith sensed when it was ready and dodged back suddenly after parrying Guts.

Thrown off balance, Guts was unable to dodge the ball of light that struck his chest, engulfing his body in rings upon rings of green magic. He was stuck, not able to so much as move his eyes. The witch revealed herself and quickly set about using chalk to draw a large pentagram around Guts, filling it with lines and symbols that he couldn't read. Special items were placed at the corners of the star, along with three drops of blood on each. The pentagram ignited with dark red flames, and the witch crouched at the corner directly ahead of Guts with her staff at the ready. Griffith walked up to guts, uncaring of the flames, and said farewell.

"You could have been so great at my side, Guts," he said, sounding almost genuine with regret. "I would have pulled out from hell with my bare hands if necessary, and you could have helped me build up my empire. But now I see, you would never have done it, not after the eclipse. So, this is goodbye, Guts, forever." He walked out of the circle and signaled the witch to begin. She jabbed her staff into the point she was closest to and said an incantation in a language that sounded almost backward.

Smoke billowed up from the lines beneath Guts and a loud whooshing deafened him. He smelled sulfur and burning flesh, gunpowder, metal. Screeching and growling came into focus as the rings faded away, and he charged from the smoke. Immediately he stopped dead and swiveled his head back and forth in his new surroundings. It was almost a worse version of the hell he'd seen during the eclipse, with more stone and fire than flesh and darkness.

The sound of explosions drew his attention to a nearby passage, out of which ran a green armored man carrying some kind of metal weapon that growled and spat out smoke. The stranger stopped dead at the sight of Guts, tilting his head in confusion. Guts pointed his sword at the stranger, drawing back his wolf-like helmet.

"Where the hell am I?" he growled, causing the stranger to chuckle. "And what the fuck are you?" The stranger tapped a spot on the side of his helmet.

"I'm known as the Doom Slayer," he said, his voice gravelly from disuse. "Welcome to hell."


	2. Two Becomes Three

"Bullshit, this is different than hell," Guts spat back. "This could be one of Griffith's tricks. You might be a demon."

"Fuck that," the Doom Slayer scoffed. "I've killed those things for centuries. Explain who Griffith is, 'cause I don't know the bastard." They were interrupted by a shout from a nearby demon, and suddenly the walls were crawling with damned flesh.

"Whoever kills the most demons isn't one," Guts said, pulling his helmet back on, his left eye hole glowing red on his helmet. The Slayer, back to back with Guts, chuckled darkly as he switched out the strange sword for what looked like a tiny double-barreled cannon.

"You're on." They suddenly split apart to begin slaughtering every demon they could reach, the Slayer pulling out a variety of weapons during the fight while Guts stuck to his sword, rarely resorting to his crossbow or bombs.

The Doom Slayer was death incarnate to the hellspawn, ripping them to shreds with either gun or fist. For him, it was just another day. _"Aim, fire, punch, aim, fire, reload, kick, rip, tear, run,"_ cycled through his head, animating his body to do as it had for over two-thousand years. In the rare case of him getting hit or scratched, his armor took the brunt of the damage and quickly healed with the power of their souls feeding into his suit.

The demons quickly learned to fear the Black Swordsman as well, who cut them down as easily as a field of flowers with his sword. His one huge red eye and wolf helmet struck terror into their empty hearts, his speed such that they couldn't land any hits on his armor. His own internal mantra was similar to the Slayer's: _"Swing, jump, slam, on the right, dodge, aim, fire, light, throw, kill, kill, kill."_

By the end, they grudgingly estimated a tie. The slayer turned to Guts. "If you're not a demon, then what are you?" Guts removed his helmet again before speaking.

"Human. Ever heard of Midland, Hundred Year War, Band of The Hawk?"

"None of 'em," the Doom Slayer replied, wondering where this was going. "Besides, hell is its own dimension, and I doubt your history's in the same one as this place, or where I'm from."

"Dimension? Sounds made up. I'm still thinking that you're a trick." The Slayer sighed in exasperation, quickly getting abraded by Guts personality

"Let's just somewhere quiet first, then we'll talk." The Slayer found a cave that they could hide in for a while, where he removed his helmet. He had a tough, scarred face, square jaw, short blonde hair, and blue eyes. "My name's Joseph. So, where you from, oh suspicious one?" They both exchanged stories of their worlds, Guts finding out about the wonderful weapons from Joseph's, and immediately decided he had to get some of his own. "That armor looks weak, will it hold up?"

"Called berserker armor. Enchanted. If I get injured, it dulls pain, holds me together to fight until I bleed out. Pierces body to pin bones in place," he explained, then pointed to his back. "Magic tattoo I have lets me use it without going insane and heals me. Use blood and souls to do that."

"Shit, now I want one," Joseph said. "Doesn't do the same as mine, but it'll keep you alive down here. What are you planning?"

"See if I can get back, kick Griffith's ass." Joseph chuckled.

"One problem dickhead: only way out is through a portal. I've been trying to get back to Earth for at least two-thousand years and haven't managed it. You're stuck here." Guts was pissed but grinned at the thought of fighting demons for eternity.

"Wait, how have you lived for so long," he suddenly realized.

"Something to do with argent energy, same stuff that powers my suit, flows in demon veins. Kept my body going this long, might do the same for you, might not. We'll find out in a hundred years."

"What do you eat here? Drink?"

"Nothin'. Argent keeps me alive, probably the same as that magic on your back," Joseph answered, standing and putting on his helmet. His voice was slightly staticky when he continued talking. "I'm killin' demons to wipe 'em out, make everywhere else safer. What're you gonna fight for?"

"I'm fightin' 'cause I want to," he answered, grinning at Joseph with his one eye. "Plus, I don't exactly wanna die."

"Well then," Joseph said, walking from the cave, "let's get fighting." He was stopped by Guts' hand on his shoulder, his other one pointing to a faint light in the distance.

"There's something out there." It was a good hike away, but Joseph's curiosity won out, and the two began walking towards the light. When they got close enough, they discovered a portal that was being fed by entire legions of demons, marching through to yet another world to conquer.

"Hell no, I'm not letting this happen" Joseph growled, pulling out his super shotgun. "We gotta stop 'em." They charged down the slope to the army and cut through the ranks like butter, trying to kill as many demons as possible. Eventually, the demons stopped going through the portal in favor of taking on the two humans that were butchering their kind, and for once they were being overwhelmed.

"We can't fight this many!" Guts shouted, voice distorted by his helmet. He slammed another three demons into the ground and tried to get to Joseph. "Come on!" He gave one more shotgun blast before nodding, charging away with Guts. They found a long-abandoned temple to catch their breath and try to come up with a solution.

"That's the first time I've ever been outnumbered like that," Joseph said, thinking. "I was running low on ammo when you called retreat, but I might have been able to keep going for a while. You?"

"Nothing but steel," Guts said, checking his ammo and finding it dry. "I need guns, something I can reload."

"You need a whole new arsenal, not just some guns," Joseph said, getting an idea as he looked at Joseph. "Matter of fact might be able to get you better." Guts needed a great number of things to be at full potential. Joseph started with a new arm.

"What's wrong with this one?" Guts asked, holding up his prosthesis.

"Doesn't move, useless."

"It's magnetic, and has a cannon in here," Guts countered, popping it open to reveal the firing chamber.

"Impressive, but it can still be better," Joseph said, trying to think of places to get such equipment. "Might be able to find something in the UAC facilities they left down here if we're lucky. Could also find a heads-up display, but it'd be really old since they're all in helmets now instead of glasses. Might try looking for some kind of radio. Only one way to find out if they're even around." They set out on another march across the fiery hellscape in search of a facility that might hold what they needed, having three to choose from within reasonable distance.

The medical facility was luckily advanced enough to have personal robotic organ replacement machinery tucked away and ready for use, Guts only having to remove his false arm and put the stump into the machine. He got a fully functioning arm once the short operation was finished, with control and feeling included. It was dull grey in color since it didn't have paint and had several places to mount various attachments. He also got a new eye shortly after, mostly glass with a ring of bright blue as an iris. It was capable of running a HUD program, which greatly assisted Guts.

"I tried to find the most customizable one this thing could build," Joseph said. "This is all it had. You might be able to jury rig some weapons onto it, but you'll have to attach a battery pack."

"These are good already," Guts said, smiling as he flexed his new hand, looking at it with both eyes. He turned to the green armored man beside him, a shit-eating type grin on his face. "Maybe you ain't an ass after all." Joseph snorted.

"Yeah, sure, now we have to find some guns for you, and we-" he was interrupted by an imp crashing through the ceiling into the floor, quickly scrambling to its feet and snarling at them. More demons entered the room, and Guts put his new hand to use by slaying the waves of unholy vermin with his sword. They ripped and tore every last one, even hunting down a few that tried to run before moving on to find an armory if possible or even a dead security guard with a functioning weapon. Their luck wasn't that good, so they had to run to the next facility.

"Sweet Jesus…" Joseph said, giving a low whistle and looking hungrily upon the rows of weapons in the somewhat small armory in the next facility. "We'll have to be quick, but I'll help you pick out some guns. Take this first though." He dropped a pocket dimension inventory into Guts' arms, looking around for some decent weapons. A good number were malfunctioning or broken, but they found or repaired enough guns to give Guts his own weapon cache. Buried under some dust in the corner was an old earbud radio, working despite its age.

"You hear me?" Joseph asked through his radio, set to Guts' channel.

"I can hear your ugly mug," Guts replied. "Weird talking like this, but useful."

"Forgot to ask, does the HUD in that eye work? It should have an ammo count and a health bar."

"Don't see a bar, but there's an ammo count, and I think a compass and map?" Guts said, uncertain.

"Good enough. Scrounge around for some attachments to your arm, someone was bound to have some before they died." They had to head out when they couldn't find anything and ran out of luck again in the third facility.

"Least I've got a hand and an eye, that's worth my cannon," Guts quipped, grinning and making Joseph chuckle. "'Sides, don't think I could use guns if I had stuff on my hand."

"Fair point. Do you know how to use them in the first place?"

"Can't be much different from my cannon," He wasn't far off, but he still needed practice with all his weapons at some point, and he wouldn't be able to use the heavier ones with just one hand anyway, leaving him with the pistol and shotgun while he was using his sword. It was enough for now and they were bound to find more useful things later. Now, they ran back to the portal they'd found.

"What are those things?" Guts asked, looking confusedly at the larger demons now entering the portal.

"Barons, Cyberdemons, other types," Joseph listed off, gazing at the horde. "Tougher than the small ones. Hit harder too."

"Then we'll hit 'em back just as hard," Guts said, grinning. His helmet swept up over his head without his help, and the pair of slayers sprinted into the fray, immediately set upon by the army. Their better communication helped them come to the assistance of the other when needed (as well as taunting each other endlessly), and Guts' new tech was holding up wonderfully in the fight. Both of them had mostly empty minds as they fought, cleared by their hatred for the demons, only the sound of their inner monologues being heard by them, or the occasional barb and ask for help. They managed to punch a hole through to the portal, deciding to jump through to fight the demons off from a bottleneck.

The other side was a nightmare, beasts that would have seemed right at home in hell savagely fighting off the demons in a landscape covered in ash. This place had already been through hell, and it didn't seem to like the thought of permanently joining the place. A human in ancient armor similar to Guts' was skillfully fighting both of the monstrous armies with everything from a great hammer to a ridiculous looking sword and a crossbow that fired lightning and poison bolts, even some magic when they had time to cast. The three of them locked eyes for a split second, deciding to ask questions after fending off the creatures that were trying to kill them.

They lost the warrior in the crowd after a minute or so, the tide of battle separating them until the battle was almost over. By then only the imps and smaller creatures were left, quickly retreating either through the portal or back into their holes they'd crawled from. Guts and Joseph were taking a minute to catch their breath, but the armored humanoid walked over seemingly no worse for wear, stomping on corpses as they went.

"Got a name?" Guts asked, then pointed at the slayer. "This bastard's Joseph, I'm Guts." Joseph smacked the side of his helmet. The warrior scratched their head, seemingly embarrassed about something. They pointed to their throat and made a cutting sign. "You're mute?" a nod. After hardly a second of rummaging, they shattered a small pot on the ground, releasing a deep, warped voice that said, 'I'm sorry.'

"Do you know how to write? You could spell it," Joseph suggested, but they shrugged, pointing to their covered head and swirling their finger around. "Something messed up in yer noggin, can't remember?" Another nod. "Then can we at least see what you look like?" They seemed apprehensive, pointing to the two men first. Joseph raised both of his hands. "Alright, alright."

They removed their helmets, and she looked between them, studying their faces; Guts with his short, black, spiky hair with a shock of white at the front, replaced eye, and many scars on his face spoke quietly of lots of experience in battle; Joseph was a lot cleaner compared to Guts with his short blonde hair, but his blue eyes also whispered eons of war, not to mention his scars. They looked back at the eyeholes in the helmet, waiting for the stranger to show their face. Two undone buckles later, a woman with a short ginger ponytail was revealed, her face beautiful despite the somewhat hunger-sunken appearance.

"Well, now that we've all been introduced, is there any way for you to tell us about this place?" Guts asked. She gave a quiet, hoarse chuckle, spreading her hands wide as far as she could. "Long story then, maybe some other time." The portal flashed brightly for a moment, beginning to shrink shortly after.

"That's our cue to leave, nice knowin' ya, lady," Joseph said, rough but polite. The woman shook her head, pointing at herself and then the other two fighters. "Well then come on, it's closing fast." They made it through with a little time to spare, the woman taking the time to look around at the literal hellscape with awe.

"Before you get too excited, you're looking at hell." She waved off Guts' comment, smiling. She kneeled down to look at the mist-like argent energy, swiping a hand through it before pulling it back quickly. She shivered, looking down at the red mist with disgust.

"What's that all about?" Joseph asked, but she again waved off her new companion. "Alright. First things first, we're getting you a new set of vocal cords. This way." The woman was confused at the statement but followed Joseph and Guts regardless. The trip to the rundown UAC base where they'd gotten Guts' new body parts was fairly short, hardly any demons giving the trio trouble, and soon they entered the medical facility once more. She seemed afraid of the machine that would give her a new voice and tried to tell the slayers this with some alarm.

"Hey, calm down. This thing is certain to not kill you," Guts reassured. "It gave me a new eye and a new arm; didn't even hurt." Her fears somewhat abated, she carefully climbed onto the metal bed and sat still as the machines scanned her throat.

"No living tissue detected," reported the operating robot.

"The fuck?" Joseph said, looking at the woman confusedly. "How are you dead?" She got up from the table, making a so-so gesture. "You're, what, half alive?" Another so-so gesture. "I don't get that, how are you semi-dead but walking?" She removed her left gauntlet, revealing a mark like a swirling inky vortex, branded or magically embedded in her skin.

"Curse of some kind, I've got experience with those," Guts said, revealing his own brand. "This one calls demons though. What's yours do?" She simply rummaged in a sack on her waist for a moment, then pulled out a coiled sword that looked almost red hot at the tip, stabbing it into the floor. She held her hand over the sword for a moment, a small bonfire springing to life, before backing up and slitting her own throat, much to Guts' and Joseph's surprise. She collapsed to ash seconds later, and the bonfire flared up as the flames swirled together, forming the woman yet again.

"You can't die," Joseph said, getting a nod from the woman.

"How lucky is it that we find three immortal people in the same day?" Guts asked, realizing just how absurd this whole situation was.


	3. From The Jaws of Death

**Hello everyone. I've had quite the inspiration with this story, and managed to crank out another chapter today. I'm open to suggestions about nearly anything, just keep in mind that this won't have any lemons. I also don't have any pairing ideas yet, but again, I'm open to suggestions anyone might have. Thank you all for picking my stories to read, and I'll see you in the next chapter.**

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The three battle-hardened humans were currently sitting around the bonfire that the unnamed woman had conjured, Joseph trying to teach the both of them sign language so that the woman would be able to talk with them. It was going a bit slow…

"Okay, now you're not even trying," Joseph sighed, looking at the incomprehensible jumble that was the woman's hands. He looked over to Guts, who was flipping him two birds and grinning.

"Is this how you do it?" He was kicked in the chest for his snark and was sent flying backward into a table, laughing the whole way.

"Useless bastard," Joseph growled, but he was also grinning. The woman was hiding her silent laughter behind a hand, shoulders shaking. She suddenly used the actual hand signs to speak.

" _You two are dumb as rocks, but it's fun to watch._ "

"So, you _have_ been learning," Joseph said, rolling his eyes. "Mind explaining why you didn't say something earlier?"

" _You look funny when you're frustrated._ "

"Great, now there's two of you tormenting me," Joseph grumbled. "Now that you can talk, how about you explain what exactly was going on with your world?"

" _Very well, but I'm hearing your stories afterward,_ " she signed, Guts sitting down in his former spot to listen. " _In the age of ancients, the world was unformed, shrouded by fog…_ " She signed whatever she knew about the history of the three lands she had fought through: Lordran, Drangleic, and Lothric. She'd fought gods, kings, wretches, creatures of unspeakable horror, lords, and traveled through it all more than a thousand times, the bonfires throwing her back through time when she completed her quests. She'd collected every weapon in every land she could get her hands on, showing the more unique ones to the curious slayers. Other Undead in her same position had fought her from different worlds, some helpful, many dangerous.

Guts was admiring Artorias' greatsword, thoroughly pleased with its design and construction; Joseph meanwhile poked at Smough's massive hammer, wondering who could wield such a thing.

" _Your turn, tell me about where you come from,_ " she signed, looking at Guts. He told her of the Hundred Year War of Midland, the Band of The Hawk, the Eclipse, and his quest to slay Griffith. Joseph goes next, telling her about the UAC, the invasion of the facility on Mars, his romps through hell, his capture, and later awakening. " _So out of the three of us, Guts is practically a baby._ " Guts gives her a death glare, and Joseph rubs his chin while smirking.

"Now that you mention it… the two of us have been fighting for thousands of years, but he's only been around for about thirty."

"Don't you start too, bastard," he warns, growling. "I'll kick both of your asses in a heartbeat."

" _Fine, fine,_ " the Undead placates while smiling. " _Maybe you can help me come up with a name then?_ " Guts responds instantly to this request.

"Zombie Bitch." Joseph snorts and tries to hold in his laughter.

"Or…" he stops to wheeze, "… a real name, one that starts with a C."

" _Why that letter?_ " she asks.

"Seems to fit you," he shrugs, Guts agreeing after a moment of thought. They throw around a few names for some time, deciding on Carmina by the end of it.

" _It's funny, Carmina was the name of a famous pyromancer in my world._ "

"Sounds awful fancy," Guts said, rolling the name around. "Caarrmmiinnaa… I still think that the better one is Cun-" Carmina backhanded the side of his head, and he fell to the floor.

" _Fool,_ " she signs, smiling at the disgruntled look he gave her. They decide that staying still for too long isn't a good idea and head out of the facility in search of demons to slay. " _May I ask what exactly we plan to do? Aside from killing demons, I don't see all that much to do._ "

"Dunno, been slaying these things for two thousand years, haven't done much else," Joseph says. "I'm happy to keep it going, but if you two have a different idea then I'll help you out."

"Isn't there some way to kill the demons for good?" Guts asks, scratching his chin. "You've been around here for so long, you must know where they breed and stuff."

"They don't breed, they just… appear," Joseph explained. "They're made of some kind of muck they make in these pits way below the ground, and they add in the argent energy and the souls that they collect from conquered worlds. There's not much you can do to destroy any of those things, so I focus on killing the demons."

" _You never explained this 'argent energy' stuff,_ " Carmina signed. " _What is it? When I touched it, I felt the souls within me changing, twisting. It felt like it was trying to take me over, but since I don't have my own soul, it couldn't._ "

"That's a pretty good defense from it," Guts said. "I've built up a resistance to possession, and Joseph has his suit, so I guess we're all safe. Wait, how much of that stuff can you hold?"

" _I don't have much right now, but I suppose I could find out my limits if it's safe,_ " she signed, looking for a stream of argent. She put her hand into the flowing red and grit her teeth as it surged through her arm into her body. She soon got used to the feeling, and just waited for it to stop. After three minutes, she decided to stop, containing enough argent that her skin was just slightly redder than before. " _Apparently, I can hold as much as I like._ "

"You're a damn argent battery," Joseph said, surprised. "Can you release it?"

" _Easily,_ " she said, forming a ball of bright argent in her hand, condensed from her handling of it.

"Looks like you have the same ability as the demons," Guts said, looking into the orb. "You got control over this stuff. See if you can attack with it while we walk, we've been here too long already." She experimented with the argent for a while, forming it around her hands, pushing it along her sword as a coating, even forming rough weapons with it. She even found that she could repair her items with it, use it to power her many spells, and copy items she'd used in the past.

"She's officially the powerhouse," Joseph said to guts, getting a nod of agreement in return.

"Oh, we got sidetracked earlier. What are we going to do?" Guts asked, looking between his companions as they walked.

" _Perhaps there will be more portals, more warriors?_ " Carmina suggested. " _They may be willing to join us like I was, and we can defend more worlds from these demons._ "

"That still leaves the problem of the portals," Joseph said. "We don't control where they go, and none of us have the knowledge to use a device that makes them besides that." He was right, they didn't know when or where the demons would make a new portal, or where it would go. They turned to Carmina when she began to exude argent into a large circle in the air, concentrating on her work with iron determination. The center of it eventually collapsed in on itself, showing a place on the other side that had white spires and a cathedral in the distance. "Where does this go?"

Dropping her hands in front of her, Carmina explained, " _Anor Londo. I was thinking of it while forming this energy, and I simply made a hole to it._ "

"Try to find somewhere new," Guts said, watching as Carmina shut the portal and closed her eyes, touching the surface of the red disk. She opened her eyes and backed up when it collapsed once again, this time opening on a charred field, construction equipment, and half-finished buildings all around with mountains in the distance. Armored corpses littered the ground, somewhat similar to Joseph's Praetor suit, and coming up the road was a live one, a woman by the look of her black and purple armor. The three walked through the portal to meet the new stranger halfway, a safe distance from each other.

"Who are you?" Guts asked, arms crossed.

"Noble Six of the UNSC, Spartan B-312. Who are you?" She asked.

"Guts. This is Joseph, that's Carmina," Guts said, introducing everyone,

"You don't look like you're from Reach," Noble Six pointed out. "Where are you from?"

"I'm from Earth," Joseph said, "He's from Midland, she's from… Lordran I guess. It's a long story, but we're all from different dimensions. We're all some type of fighter or another, and you look like one heck of a soldier."

"I'm trained as a soldier, yes," she said, partially confused. Ships began coming in over the horizon, and her attention was drawn away. "You'd better hide for a while; the Covenant is on its way here."

"The Covenant?" Guts asked.

"Alien religious group, genocidal towards humans, killed off two colony worlds and millions of humans," the Spartan answered, surprised when Joseph growled.

"Fuck hiding, I'm ripping those scumbags apart with my bare hands." He raised a pump-action shotgun to bear, cocking it and readying himself for a fight. Guts pulled his sword from his back with one hand, readying a small double barrel shotgun in his left. Carmina pulled a dragon tooth from… somewhere, and slid a shield emblazoned with a grass crest onto her back. She suddenly remembered something and turned around to close the portal to hell she'd made earlier, making sure they wouldn't be interrupted by demons. She reabsorbed the red energy and spun back around as the first Phantom came in close enough to start dropping soldiers.

"I'm with him, I hate religions that get all high and mighty," Guts said, checking his shotgun. Carmina said nothing and was so still she could have been a statue, her eyes following the aliens. They all waited as the Covenant got closer, and suddenly sprinted forward when the first shot whizzed past Six's head. Bodies went flying when the two sides collided, most of them cut in half or slashed apart, and a few peppered with buckshot. The Grunts and Jackals weren't a threat to anyone, and the Elites were only marginally tougher for the three that weren't accustomed to fighting them. The only real challenge was found in the Hunters, but their exposed weak point made them simple to kill.

They fought on, minutes turning to hours going by, but the Covenant kept coming. Guts had been caught by close to eight of those plasma shots (the burns and warped metal now healed and fixed) and had six shattered ribs pinned back together after getting slammed by a Hunter. Carmina kept having to drink from her flask, the orange liquid inside dangerously low, and never having time to cast anything. Even Joseph was having trouble dealing with an organized enemy. Six's cracked visor no longer displayed her HUD, and she kept running out of ammo and having to pick up a new weapon.

Carmina was shot in the shoulder, tearing off her left arm, and she tumbled to the ground clutching her stump, screaming. Without a bonfire to return to, she didn't know where she would end up if she died. Joseph and Guts came to her aid as fast as they could, standing back to back around her prone form, joined by Six a few moments later. Now trapped defending Carmina, they had an even harder time managing their enemy.

A call rang out somewhere in the crowd of enemies, signaling a full retreat. A Supercarrier had moved above them during the fight, its glassing beam charging and almost ready to release on a relatively close city. At this range, Six estimated that they would still die from the blast.

Carmina weakly brought up the argent energy she'd stored, and created a portal back to hell before collapsing again, conscious but unable to move. Guts picked her up and carried her through, followed by Joseph and Six with only a little hesitation. The beam hit Reach just as the portal was closed again, and they were safe. Carmina was able to pull out the coiled sword again, Guts stabbing it into the ground and filling her Estus flask for her. She took three gulps of the liquid in quick succession, replacing her arm and allowing her to move in front of the bonfire to repair her armor and weapons.

"Do I get an explanation now?" Six asked, looking around at the red land. "It looks like hell around here."

"It is," Joseph answered, watching their surroundings for demons. "We'll tell you what you want to know as soon as we move to a safer spot. You ready yet, Carmina?" She nodded and pulled the sword up to store it in her inventory. They moved into a temple that wasn't too far away, closing as many doors as they could before Carmina lit another bonfire with the sword, and they sat down around it to talk. They all removed their helmets and told their stories, and then the real question came up.

"So, you wanna go back?" Guts asked, gauging the shaved brunette's reaction.

"To what?" she replied. "Reach is gone, I was taken from my family at seven, my team is dead or god knows where, and going back into that mess of a war is going to get me killed. I hate to abandon humanity, but I would have finished my fight then and there if you three hadn't saved me. As far as I'm concerned, I've already fought for the UNSC. If you'll have me, I'm joining you guys."

"Of course, the classic team of four," Joseph said sarcastically. "The super soldier, the demon hunter, the asshole-" Guts punched his helmet, producing a loud 'clang', "-and the mute-" he was punched again, this time by Carmina, and another loud 'clang' sounded out. Carmina suddenly realized something.

" _What's your name?_ " Carmina signed, head slightly tilted with curiosity.

"Samantha," the Spartan replied, wondering how long it had been since she'd told anyone. A few questions were asked and answered between everyone for a while, but everything caught up to them, and they found spots to sleep, Joseph taking the first watch. There wasn't a true nighttime in hell, but the temple was dark enough to sleep in for a few hours. Carmina spent her watch beside a stream of argent, taking in more of the energy for later. Guts didn't move for three hours until it was Six's turn, who did the same and wondered how she was going to fix her helmet.

Six's shift ended when she went back inside the temple and walked in on everyone already awake. Her stomach growled loudly, and she realized she hadn't had anything to eat since yesterday morning.

"Does anyone have anything to eat? I'm starving," she said, sitting beside the bonfire.

"Nope," Joseph said. "I live on argent, he's got a tattoo that keeps him alive, and she's undead. Sorry." Sam huffed, and looked over at Carmina, wondering what she kept staring at.

"What?" Carmina just gestured for her to turn around. When she did, she heard the Undead softly gasp, and scoot closer. "What is it?"

"You've got a Dark Sign behind your left ear," Guts said, looking at the mark as well. "Carmina has one on the back of her hand, means that you're Undead. Congratulations, you can't die." Carmina seemed energetic, bouncing a little in place. "Seems she's excited to have another Undead to talk with."

"So, what does being Undead mean?" Sam asked, turning to Carmina.

" _You're now inhuman, a being that fills the void inside with souls,_ " she explained. " _That hunger from earlier must have been your hunger for souls. If you're killed, you'll come back to life at the last bonfire you rested at, or where you last rested if the bonfire is no longer lit. You also no longer have a soul, meaning you're immune to the possession effects of argent energy._ "

"Sounds useful," Sam said, thinking over what she'd been told. "Anything I can do with this argent stuff?"

" _Plenty. It's how I made that portal earlier, and I can use it for a variety of things,_ " Carmina said, then demonstrated what she'd already found out she could do with argent energy. Guts and Joseph were content to stay out of their way as they talked, not getting up with them when they left to find some argent energy to take in.

"They seem to be getting along well," Guts commented.

"Not surprising really," Joseph replied. "They were both alone for a long time by the sounds of it. Having so much in common with someone else made it easy to get along." They were quiet for a moment. Then- "We should fight."

"Huh?" Guts said, raising an eyebrow at Joseph. "Why?"

"We've been butting heads this whole time, and now you need a reason to fight me?" Joseph asked. "I want a battle dammit! Sitting around so much is weird to me, so is staying in one spot. Now come on, fight me!"

"Fine," Guts said, giving Joseph the only warning he would receive. Immediately they sprung into action, Guts flipping backward over the place he'd been sitting as his helmet came up, landing hand first on his sword hilt and flipping again back onto his feet with his sword in front of him.

Joseph quickly slammed his helmet onto his head and drew his plasma rifle, rolling onto his feet in the same moment. They faced each other in the dim firelight, waiting for just a moment before they began fighting. At some undetectable signal, they launched at each other.


	4. Howdy!

Sounds of fighting echoed from inside the temple, the clanging of Guts' sword and the various blasts of Joseph's weapons forming a discordant melody. The two undead were distracted only a little but decided not to worry since they couldn't hear demon screeches. Carmina and Sam were sitting in the middle of a large flow of argent energy, siphoning and storing the energy while also turning progressively darker shades of red.

" _I'm beginning to wonder if there really is a limit to how much argent we can take in,_ " Carmina signed. " _I almost feel full now, like I'm not hungry anymore. It's strange, every time I think I've reached the brim, I discover that I really had more room all along._ "

"I'm not quite there yet, but I'm taking in this stuff until I get the same way," Sam replied. "Of course, you have all of those souls to take up space too, right?"

" _Not really,_ " Carmina signed. " _In the past, no matter how many souls I claimed, I never got any fuller, or any more human. Even now, with all of the souls I have, if I were to die I would still look hollow._ " They were quiet for a time, the sound of Guts and Joseph's battle filling the silence. Carmina had now gotten so red that her hair looked almost blonde by comparison, and Samantha wasn't far behind.

"Tell me more about the people you met," Samantha asked. "I get the feeling that they're all very interesting." Carmina smiled and pretended to think about it for a moment.

" _To start off, one man that you must know about is Solaire, the man who sought his very own sun. He had an unshakeable faith in his own quest and even seemed thankful to become hollow, if only for an excuse to wander into Lordran…_ "

Back with Guts and Joseph, the two were still fighting as ferociously now as when they'd begun. Guts used a maneuverability that Joseph couldn't match to bound from walls, pillars, and even run along the ceiling. Joseph was bound to the ground, and so ran around firing at Guts when he sat still, trying to make himself less of a target at the same time. Guts regularly leaped close enough to Joseph to get in a proper swing at the demon slayer, already marring the surface of his armor in three or four places with deep trenches in the green metal. Guts was also marked in places, with a still glowing plasma burn on his thigh and a few bullet holes in his right arm. They'd agreed to not heal unless it was life-threatening, at which point the one who'd 'killed' the other would be the victor.

Up to now, it had seemed like Joseph had had the upper hand, but with Guts most recent hit-and-run leaving a deep, blood-gushing slash across the slayer's stomach the tide had turned. Joseph kept getting dizzier as he lost more blood, making it easier to lose concentration and harder to hit the now stalling Guts. Finally, he just fell onto the ground with a grunt.

"I yield, you win," he said, making Guts stop his running around and jump over to Joseph to stand beside him as he turned on his suit's healing, him doing the same. Their armor closed up and got shiny again, while their wounds stitched themselves together, in Guts case pushing out buckshot from his arm. "That was a good fight."

"It was my pleasure to kick your ass," Guts said, grinning. "I'd happily do it again." They both laughed for a minute, and then went out to check on Carmina and Sam. They found them in the middle of a stream of argent, as red as they could possibly be, and talking like old friends.

"Ziegmeyer sounds like a great friend, maybe I'll get to meet him someday," Sam said, then noticed that the two slayers were done fighting. "Who won?"

"I did, by blood loss," Guts said, using his hand to indicate a slash across the stomach. "I thought it was deep enough to make his entrails fall out, but I'll take this."

"I'll get you next time," Joseph promised, pointing at Guts' face.

"What are you going to do, bleed on me?" Guts taunted, laughing at Joseph. "You fought good, don't worry about it."

" _I'm glad you got it all figured out,_ " Carmina signed, " _but maybe we should get moving._ "

"Probably," Guts agreed. "Does everyone have everything?" After a quick item check, they got moving again. Sam repaired her helmet with argent as they traveled, but they all mostly thought quietly. It was the sort of wandering walk you take when your mind is everywhere and nowhere. The occasional demon ambush was easily dealt with by the four of them together, Sam and Carmina trying out using their control over argent energy to fight, but then it was back to wandering and walking.

"Why are we walking around like this?" Sam asked. "We're not going anywhere specific, and we just seem to be attracting more attention like this than when we were sitting around." Before Guts or Joseph could answer, Carmina got Sam's attention and explained something very important.

" _Undead are in grave danger when they lose hope or go on without a goal,_ " she signed, her face grave. " _When an Undead does this, they go mad, become Hollows. I've seen friends go hollow before: Solaire when he couldn't find the sun, the crestfallen knight in Firelink, people with hope snatched away and their sanity with it. We tried to find a goal earlier, and we came up with finding more warriors, like you, like me, like them, to join the fight against hell, to protect those that can't defend themselves. Such a noble undertaking is enough, I think, to keep us both sane, and be worth a little walking when we're not traveling. Not every battle is won by those that only know how to fight. You must learn to rest, to 'take a breather,' so to speak. If you don't, you'll be worn out ever quicker, worked to the bone, your will ground to dust and your dreams vanishing before your eyes, hollow in every sense._ " Sam nodded to Carmina, thankful for what she'd said. They kept walking.

They found a new temple to rest at and decided that it was a good place to enter another portal. Carmina let Sam make this portal (her only instructions were to try and find a world with a noble and strong warrior in it) for practice and wondered where this portal would lead them. The mist curled out from Sam's hands like smoke from a frozen fire, swirling on the ground before rising into a disk and slowly falling through itself. For a moment there was the barest glimpse of void through the red fumes, but light replaced the dark, and soon enough a dirt road winding through a jungle could be seen.

A man in a wingsuit landed a few feet away, covered in weapons and wearing a grappling hook on his left arm. He looked into the portal for a few seconds, expression unchanged.

"Nope," he said simply, hooking into a tree and flying off. "Nope, nope, nope, nope…"

"Well that was weird," Joseph remarked as Sam closed the portal and tried again.

" _He certainly seemed strong, but it looks as though his world had beliefs of some sort to prevent him from joining,_ " Carmina signed, as confused as everyone else. " _What does 'nope' mean by the way?_ "

"It's a sort of reaction to situation's someone can't handle," Sam said. "If you were to come upon one of those lords of cinder when you were weak, where you might do your best to kill them and would likely succeed, someone weaker in some way might panic immediately and be killed all the faster. The other end of that panic is a lack of reaction. You might say it's just a shutdown, or them being in the middle of processing what they're seeing."

"Decent enough explanation," Joseph shrugged, watching Sam's newest portal. "I guess it just tells us to prepare for anything." This time the view on the other side was odd, to say the least, different from previous portals. A bed of golden flowers was in the middle of a tall cave and looked well taken care of. They all walked through to get a better look at the place, but the sound of a faint scuffing had all of them shoot their gazes upwards. A very short human in a striped sweater had just tripped near the hole far above and was falling right towards them. Guts reacted first, jumping between the walls of the cave to gain height and catch the human before they hit the ground, surprising them and keeping them silent as Guts slid back down the rock to the floor of the cave. Carmina was glancing around confusedly but drew her gaze to the human as Guts set them on their feet.

"You alright, kid?" Guts asked, kneeling down to get closer to the human's level. Their eyes were red, and their face was both angry and surprised. A strange clicking sound accompanied the world going dark, and everyone turning black and white. The human kid drew a weird looking red kitchen knife, and they all enter a FIGHT.

*These four are more powerful than you can imagine.

It starts off as the kid's turn, and nobody is able to move when-

*CHECK

*Guts – ATK ? DEF ?

*You're in my way.

*Samantha – ATK ? DEF ?

*The second hyper-lethal vector.

*Joseph – ATK ? DEF ?

*Rip and tear, until it is done.

*Carmina – ATK ? DEF ?

*Prepare to die.

The child hesitates for only a moment but shakes it off and runs to cut at Guts. He blocks the strike with his sword, and then everyone collectively FIGHTs the human. Their dodging skill is a sight to behold, simultaneously moving through four different attacks.

"Think this is who we're here for?" Guts asked, preparing for the next attack.

"Who else?" Sam replies. "Have you seen anyone else that can fight like this? But why are they hostile?"

" _Let me try something,_ " Carmina said, readying her Dark Hand. The kid attacks the undead next but gets parried by her, and suddenly has her SOUL pulled from her chest. The dark red heart looks almost sick, covered in webs of black sludge and beating irregularly.

*CHECK

*Frisk/Chara – ATK 99 DEF 99

*They are not yet too far gone to SAVE.

The child snarls and yanks her SOUL back, jumping away as her turn ends.

"Anything we can do, Carmina?" Sam asked, preparing her combat knife.

" _Keep them distracted for a minute, I need to get something ready,_ " Carmina said as she rummaged through her pouch. While everyone else kept up the attack, the undead woman retrieved her most powerful talisman and began reciting a prayer. Finally, her fist glowed with power, spell prepared and waiting to be unleashed. She slaps one gauntlet against the other, making a loud clang. Samantha, Guts, and Joseph all jump aside, leaving the child stuck mid-dodge as Carmina ACTed. She ran to the human child and embraced them as the blue lights of Caressing Tears floated around them. They struggled hard, twisting in Carmina's hold, but eventually went still as a dark mist ran from their mouth and eyes. The vapor condensed into a human shape, and a furious carbon copy of the human was made in a few moments.

"Just who do you all think you are?!" they shouted, summoning their red knife from the human's limp grasp. "I'm the demon that comes when people call its name! I'm the destroyer of timelines and worlds! I'm-"

"Gonna have to hold that thought," Guts interrupted, walking to where Carmina was trying to use a few miracles to get the human responsive again. "They good?"

" _Exhausted, but yes,_ " she signed as she stood, human held in one arm. " _Can someone else take care of the other one in a timely manner? My hands are full._ "

"No problem," Joseph said from behind the copycat, clocking them over the head while they were still caught unaware. They crumpled to the ground and the FIGHT ended, returning the world around them back to normal. "Now what?"

"Howdy!" a flower greeted cheerfully, sprouting from the ground. "I'm Flowey, Flowey the Flower!" He shut up right after his introduction thanks to the freshly-pumped shotgun suddenly pointed in his face. The human came to a moment later, opening bright blue eyes, and saw Flowey's situation. They leaped away from Carmina to block Joseph's line of fire.

"Don't! He may be awful, but don't kill him!" they said quickly. "He's a… sort of friend – my friend, and I want him alive, okay?" Joseph was frozen for a moment, gun still pointed down at the kid and the flower, but it didn't take long to put it away and back off.

"Hello? Is someone there?" a kind voice asked from deeper in the cave. Footsteps came closer, and soon the owner of those feet came into the light. A tall, fluffy, and white goat-like monster stepped forward. "I heard something… going… on… what has happened here?"

"Long story," Guts growled. "We'll talk in a minute."

"Don't mind him. He's rough around the edges but means well," Sam explained, walking in front of the monster to say hello. "I hate to be suspicious, but you don't intend to cause trouble, right? We only got here ten minutes ago and already had a fight."

"A fight? Goodness!" Toriel said, putting a paw up to her face. "Was anyone hurt? Do you need help?"

" _Truly, the embodiment of danger,_ " Carmina deadpanned with her fingers, rolling her eyes. " _Calm down, Samantha._ "

"Everyone stop," Joseph said, putting away his shotgun. "Introductions? I'm Joseph, that's Guts, Sam, and Carmina. Now, who is everyone else?" There was a short silence, and then the human got to their feet.

"My name is Frisk," she said, introducing herself. "Flowey has already introduced himself, and what's your name?"

"I… am Toriel, the caretaker of the ruins," the goat monster said, still very confused. "Could someone please explain what is going on?"

"Alright," Sam said. "Here's the quick version: the four of us in armor are from different dimensions and came to this one to find another fighter to join up with us. The long version will have to wait until everything here is figured out." Toriel nodded at the quick explanation, hoping that it would be added onto later. She attempted to dig up Flowey and place him in a pot, but he just hissed at her and uprooted himself, wrapping his vines in a snug fit around Frisk's left arm.

Toriel guided them through the puzzles at a leisurely pace while Guts carried "Chara", still unconscious. They reached the caretaker's home in minutes, and those that couldn't claim a chair found spots leaning against the wall or on the floor. Toriel offered some of her freshly baked butterscotch-cinnamon pie, but everyone politely declined. Finally, everyone began to spin their tales again.

"I took my first breaths without a mother…"

"I was trained to protect my home…"

" _I woke up in a cell without knowing who I was…_ "

"I was taken from my home when I was only a child…"

Each story was dark by any standard and left hardly any mysteries surrounding the people they were about. Toriel was wide-eyed with a lot of emotions: shock, horror, revulsion, fear. As a mother who'd lost her child, she could barely stand to keep listening to what they were all saying. Demons, wars, monsters that had no trace of kindness, and entire planets being wiped clean because of a religion. She shuddered to so much as think of any of it, and yet the four humans before her had lived through all of it if they were to be believed. Chara had woken up when they'd reached the house, but even they were struck dumb by the backstories of the four most dangerous humans she'd ever seen. When they were done, silence filled the air. Then, Frisk began to speak.

"A long, long time ago, a human climbed Mount Ebott, and fell into the ruins below…"

* * *

 **Hi everybody. I'm really sorry about the wait for this chapter, but my motivation and inspiration has plummeted recently, and I've been vegging out for a few weeks. Once school starts back up I'll get into the groove of things again hopefully, but I'll try my best to get more chapters out. I'll be honest, things are stable in my life in a way I don't like, probably why I've had such a problem writing. I'll see all of you in my next chapter, and try my hardest to deliver quality content.**


	5. A Whole New Wooooooorld!

Toriel could hardly stand the other human's stories, but Frisk's had caused her the most grief. Countless years repeating the same journey. Meeting her, leaving her, facing the underground, facing Asgore, battling her own son returned from the dead, and breaking the barrier to release the monsters from their prison. But there were also the genocide routes, sparing not a single monster in their path, and killing off the whole world when they met up with her other child, hardly human at that point, better described as a demon than such an innocent title. Both of her children were sitting in this room with her, now older than she was but wearing the same faces, except for Asriel, a soulless flower.

"Please believe me when I say that I'm so, _so_ sorry, mom," Frisk pleaded, using their preferred name for Toriel. "I didn't want to after the first monster, but I couldn't fight my determination. I'd decided to see what would happen, and then it didn't matter what I thought, I couldn't stop killing. I thought it was Chara doing that, but…"

"Yeah, not me," the demon interjected. "I may have been full of enough hate for humanity to kill with a glare, but I wasn't the one puppeting Frisk." Flowey suddenly started giggling madly, setting Guts' and Joseph's teeth on edge.

"Funny how life works, huh?" he said, dropping the overly-happy façade. "Her kids die and come back as **true monsters**. She deserves this guilt though, after – mmph!"

"That's enough, Flowey," Frisk said, covering his mouth. "I guess you can all see the result of losing your soul. One minute a fluffy-goaty marshmallow, the next a spiteful ball of vines and hate." They addressed Toriel. "He's wrong about you, and I'm sorry for everything that's happened to you, mom."

"As touching as this is, I think these two are getting impatient," Samantha said, jabbing her thumb in the direction of Guts and Joseph. "What happens now?"

"One last pacifist run," Frisk stated, their determination flaring. "I'll decide where I go after I break the barrier for the last time."

"We're in a hurry, how long will this take doing it your way?" Guts interrogated.

"On average, a few hours to go through the whole underground, battles and conversations included."

"Without them?"

"Maybe… half an hour? A good hour at most," Frisk guessed, making Carmina sit up straighter.

" _How small is the monster species to fit in such a tiny place?_ " Toriel adopted a sad look at her question.

"Not much was left after the war, so not much was needed to hold us," she replied. "We were never large in numbers to begin with."

"I think we can cut down the time to cross," Joseph said, interrupting the depressing air that had been gathering. "I'm guessing you just walked through. One of us can carry you, and we can sprint through. Our armor will stop questions long enough for us to pass without anyone stopping us, and it'll be a straight shot to the barrier."

"Sounds good," Guts said, hoisting Frisk and Flowey onto his back while they yelped. "Someone grab Chara and we'll go." Samantha approached the spirit and picked them up more gentle than Guts had.

"W-wait a moment," Toriel stuttered. "I don't think I can keep up."

"Just ask for a shortcut from Sans," Frisk suggested. "He'll know what to do. He's a skeleton in a blue hoodie. Onward!"

"Don't get cute, kid," Guts growled, but began running down the stairs regardless, followed closely by the other humans. They burst through the two downstairs doors easily and began sprinting through the snowy forest. They skirted around a baffled skeleton on the way through and bypassed a few puzzles as well, running across the rope bridge and through Snowdin in no time. Waterfall was hardly a puddle to Frisk at this speed, and even Undyne couldn't catch up when she saw them go by. Hotland was even faster without the electric barriers being put up, and they finally slowed down to ride in the elevators.

"Holy cow!" Frisk said breathlessly. "How are you guys so fast?"

"Have to be quick when you're fighting," Sam replied, immediately joining everyone else in the continued dash when the elevator dinged open. They ran past royal guards, Hotland citizens, and large pipes, coming up on MTT resort in moments. They were through in a flash and then riding the elevator to the palace. When they got out this time they walked, catching their breath, and took an easy pace through the grey corridors. They found Sans and Toriel waiting for them in the judgment hall, though Toriel looked worried. The sound of their footsteps roused her from her thinking, at which point she suddenly looked surprised.

"I didn't expect you so soon, I only finished explaining everything to Sans moments ago!" she exclaimed. "How did-"

"Save monsters now, stories later," Guts said, gravelly voice brooking no arguments. Toriel nodded and stayed behind the four of them with Sans as they entered the throne room. Everyone found themselves in a peaceful scene that belonged in a painting. King Asgore was watering the flowers that spread around his throne, quietly humming some foreign tune. A phone began ringing urgently somewhere nearby as soon as they entered, but he ignored it in favor of the sudden appearance of the heavily armed humans.

"… Howdy? What can I do for you?" he asked, face calm while he summoned his trident behind his back.

"Long story short: we're here to save you, then get out of your hair," Joseph summarized. "We're in a bit of a hurry, so kindly move out of the way of the Barrier so we can break it."

"We'll be having words later, Dreemurr," Toriel declared from behind the group. "For now, just know that they're telling the truth." Asgore was shocked for a moment, dead silent and staring at his long-since vanished ex-wife. He shook it off after a moment and led the humans to the Barrier himself, wondering what the heck was going on as he did. He was surprised at the Barrier's condition when they got to the hallway that housed it: shaking, shuddering, and cracking just from the mere presence of the humans he was leading. When they got even closer, it just collapsed under the strain, the magic that had trapped monsters underground for years disintegrating almost immediately.

"Who… what are you?" he asked them, awe and fear in his voice. Carmina opened a portal, then turned to answer.

" _We're slayers, killers, warriors, and murderers, every last one of us, even the children_ " she signed, face unreadable behind her helmet. " _And we're the ones who freed you from this prison. Goodbye, King Asgore._ " And then they were gone.

Frisk and Chara covered their noses when they emerged onto the hellscape, gagging at the heat, dust, and strong smell. Even Flowey was having a bad time.

"Sweet underground, what is that smell?!" he complained loudly, covering part of his face with a leaf. "I don't even know what it smells like, and don't really want to."

"We're in hell," Samantha explained, "what did you expect? Sunshine and roses?"

"Ugh, I'm feeling sick," Frisk said, swaying where they stood. Flowey was getting worried about the human, but Chara was apparently unaffected by the dimension's power. Soon Frisk couldn't handle whatever was affecting them, and they toppled into the dust, prompting Carmina to check them over.

" _It's the argent, they can't handle it,_ " Carmina signed to the others. She turned back and noticed Flowey was unaffected thus far. " _Flowey, see if you can protect Frisk from the red energy around here, it doesn't seem to affect you from indirect exposure._ "

"I still don't-" he started to say, but Joseph cut him off.

"She said to cover the kid up somehow, the energy around here is affecting them badly, but you're immune to it apparently," he summarized, walking closer. "Isn't there some way for you to do that?"

"Let me try this," Flowey said, but internally he thought, " _I hope this works._ " He began cocooning Frisk with his vines, wrapping them snugly with layer upon layer of fibrous green. His flower head moved to perch above Frisk's ear while he grew over the human's body, and they started coming around when they were totally covered.

"Wh… what happened?" Frisk said slowly, getting set back on their own feet. "I heard something in my head, and then everything went fuzzy."

"You almost got possessed, Flowey's acting as a hazmat suit for now," Joseph explained. "Let's set up camp in a temple first, then we can solve your problem."

"They almost got possessed?" Chara asked, incredulous. "They haven't even killed anything! How did something almost take over their mind?"

"Like he said, we'll find camp first, then talk," Guts said, watchful of their surroundings. "You're a liability right now, and we don't want to meet some real demons before you know how to handle 'em." Chara sulked in the middle of the group next to Frisk as they walked, angry at being called a liability and not a real demon. Their mind changed quickly when a patrol of demons found them, however, and they watched with wide eyes as the four humans utterly destroyed the hellspawn. They encountered a few more such patrols as they searched, but eventually found temporary sanctuary in a stone temple.

"Listen up, you're about to hear what you need to know to survive," Sam said to the humans and Flowey. "This dimension is called hell, the energy in…" Guts and Joseph walked away for a moment to talk as Sam taught and Carmina dosed.

"How many are we bringing in? This group isn't enough for anything, let alone surviving hell," Guts stated quietly. "I know you have some kind of plan, spill it."

"You're right, we don't have the manpower," Joseph agreed. "We'll need a lot more fighters than this. Problem is, possession is a real danger here, as we saw earlier. Even if we do find somebody who might be able to keep up, there's no guarantee that we'll be as lucky as we have been, and they'll somehow be able to take in argent."

"Speaking of that, how do we help Frisk?" Guts asked, looking back at the human child… sort-of child. "They handle argent like I breathe water. We're lucky Flowey was able to do something."

"Maybe Flowey can do more," Joseph said, thinking. "I have no clue if it would work like I think, but think of this…" He roughly outlined something risky: a full graft of Flowey to Frisk, turning them from two to one. Roots taking hold throughout Frisk's body, absorbing the argent before it could do anything, and maybe doing more than that.

"Would it even be possible? I'm worried about your sanity at the moment," Guts said, looking askance at Joseph. "That may be a person with centuries of experience, but that's the body of a kid, they may not be able to take it." They argued for a few minutes, attracting the attention of the others, now finished with their lesson.

"What are you two talking about?" Chara demanded. "You've been arguing for a few minutes now." Everyone was brought up to speed, and Frisk looked like they were seriously considering it beneath the bulky vine suit. "You're officially insane! Both of you!"

"Honestly, what the hell you guys?" Sam said fiercely. "Ignoring all of the physical strains, the pain that you're suggesting is on par with torture! I refuse to-" she was interrupted by Frisk groaning in pain, and whirled to face Frisk as they slowly laid on their back, Flowey's vines shaking with his fear.

"God, Frisk, why did you talk me into this?!" he demanded, even him not wanting to continue this. Maybe this was why Frisk had him start with their heart: if they stopped now they would die. With regret, Flowey kept forcing his roots into Frisk's body, trying to ignore the sounds of pain while also going as slow as he could.

"I-I'm f-f-fine Fl-Flowey," Frisk reassured, voice nearly breaking with the pain. "Just-just keep go – argh!" The others knew they couldn't stop it, and were forced to listen to Frisk screaming in pain as Flowey kept growing, before mercifully falling unconscious. When Sam checked their pulse, it remained stable despite the trauma, Flowey saying that he had to force it to beat properly.

"I'm so sorry," he said, sticky tears running down his face. "They-they got to-to thinking when they heard them talking, a-and then they had me start at th-their heart so I couldn't s-stop."

"I get it, just be as gentle as you can," Guts said, ashamed that he and Joseph had inadvertently caused this. Even he didn't want to imagine pain like what Frisk must be feeling. "Just… make sure they stay alive…" An hour later Flowey finished, still positioned over Frisk's ear. Their skin was greenish now, veins starkly visible underneath the pale and tight exterior. They breathed slowly, Flowey doing his best to suppress Frisk's pain while they slept.

"I don't like being able to do so much to them," Flowey said, voice raw. "I'm in every part of them: heart, lungs, even their brain. One little twitch and they're gone… I would have killed for something like this a while ago, but now it makes me sick."

"What changed?" Sam asked, half out of curiosity and half to distract Flowey from his guilt.

"I think that they're bleeding over. I still don't have a soul, but being connected to someone on this level apparently means a few things carry over," Flowey answered. He realized something. "If I got their morality… what did they get?" Everyone was deeply disturbed by that question, but they would have to wait and see for the answer. Frisk stirred a few hours later, eyes slowly cracking open and squinting in the dim room. Carmina was soon at the human's side, checking them over.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I just have a headache," Frisk said, waving her worries away. "… and an ache everywhere else too, ow… How are you, Flowey?" Instead of hearing him with ears, Frisk was startled to hear him give a hollow chuckle in her mind.

"You really are an idiot," he said, slow laughter barely covering tears. Sap dripped down the side of Frisk's hair, his tears they realized. "You made me start in your chest on purpose, and I had to listen to your screams. It sounded like you wanted to die, Frisk. I had to keep pumping your heart, you were in such shock. I worked your lungs too, and I'm still keeping your pain at bay. You'd be screaming until you spit blood without me in your head to turn down this pain. Why did you talk me into this?"

"Flowey, I'm sorry," Frisk said, crying themselves. "I didn't know what you'd have to go through for me, and it isn't fair to you."

"Well, there's one upside to this," Flowey said with a sniffle. "I've got a sense of right and wrong again. Apparently, yours bled over to me when I rooted in your brain. What I'm worried about is what you got back, Frisk. Do you feel different?"

"Other than the aching, no," Frisk said, thinking through her feelings about certain things to see if something had changed. "Maybe you not having a soul was just a vacuum that got filled by me? I don't know what else to think of."

"Speaking of the soulless thing, I think I'm slowly getting one. That argent is really close to determination when you get down to it, but more alive, and I can feel it siphoning into the hole where my soul would go." Evidence of this change was slowly becoming apparent: Flowey had been a vibrant green and bright yellow when they'd first come to hell but was now closer to sickly yellow and dark orange, in his stem and petals respectively. His face was also changing, more fangs than his scary face ever had, and eyes like hellfire, still expressing concern despite the intimidation factor.

"Would you get one faster if I found one of those streams that Sam and Car were talking about?" Frisk asked, thinking.

"Maybe? I'm getting this just from the air around us, so it's definitely a possibility. Let's ask the others before we do something dumb again, okay?" He had lost his barbed and acid tone, replaced with a dull tiredness that Frisk felt on a physical level. They asked Carmina and Samantha about finding an argent stream to boost Flowey and found themselves with an escort moments later, with the excuse that they wanted to top up their own argent as well. Flowey handled the concentrated power well and began going to bright yellow and vibrant orange quickly, telling Frisk to find a way to occupy themselves while he worked.

"So, have you guys ever tried laying in the floor and feeling like garbage?" Frisk asked the two warrior women. Said women shared a confused look, before turning back to a smiling Frisk. "I guess not. Just follow my lead." For the next few hours, all three of them were lying face down in the stream of argent, in tune with the universe and its trash.

* * *

 **Hello readers. I may or may not have forgotten (I did forget) to mention this during her introduction, but Carmina is also the protagonist in Bloodborne and Demons Souls. It's a bit late-game to add that in, buuut, it needed to be said at some point. Basically, our undead friend is the badass in chief of From Software titles that relate to the phrase "git gud." I don't want to use 2 characters from such similar games, so I'll compress them into one. Besides, with Marvelous Chester in both the Prepare to Die dlc for ds1 and in Bloodborne, they're probably part of the same universe anyways. On that note, be concerned for Frisk, because JESUS, it's going to get even worse from here, and I'm very sorry in advance. Anywho, see everyone in the next chapter! (btw, sorry that this took so long to get typed, writer's brick was killing me , along with general laziness.)**


	6. Weeding Out Weakness

Carmina, Guts, and Joseph were silent in the temple, waiting for the others to return. Chara sat against the wall some distance away from them, their shoulders shaking, trying to not show how disturbed they were at the sight of Frisk writhing in pain and Flowey crying tearful apologies. The others were stiff as they stared at the floor, Guts and Joseph with guilt, Carmina with horror.

"I've seen some messed up things in my life, we all have," Guts said quietly. "That… may be the worst. A _child_ went through that, wasn't allowed to die…"

"I can't tell if they're just tough enough to treat this better than us, or if Flowey's made them forget part of what happened," Joseph added, partly just to fill the silence. "They've said that they died a bunch of times during the resets, thousands of times even; I have to think that this was worse. They were forced to endure the pain instead of going back."

" _I don't think I can pile on any more guilt than you two already have,_ " Carmina signed, a disgusted look still on her face. " _Suffice it to say that I don't want something so awful happening again, or for any of us to cause it._ " They nodded, readily agreeing. A hollow, quiet laughter that gave Carmina flashbacks to Firelink Shrine echoed from Chara. Their tears dripped loudly on the stone floor.

"I don't know what's worse, this place or the people in it," Chara whispered shakily, sounding close to breaking. "Even at the end of the genocide runs, when I took their soul and sent them to another world, their death was quick, some might say merciful. Their DT and EXP were so high that it didn't feel like anything to them, and it was what they deserved at that point. I hate humans, Frisk is the only one I can tolerate even a little, but I wouldn't want anything or anyone to experience that."

"These thoughts aren't going anywhere!" Guts suddenly shouted, seemingly angry at himself. "It happened, but we'll make sure it doesn't after today. There's nothing that can be done about it now." He turned to Chara. "If they're the only one you can stand, then help them get stronger, enough to survive here. Breaking down won't help anyone, least of all Frisk." Carmina sighed, somewhere between exasperation and admitting that Guts was right. Chara was quiet but took a steadying breath.

"… You're right. I'm going to look for them and practice my teaching." She walked out, forgetting to insult anyone after everything that had happened.

" _Did we make the right choice?_ " Carmina asked. " _Bringing them here?_ "

"I want to think we did," Joseph said. "They've been through the same stuff we have, at a different age maybe, but as kids, we all made friends with death."

Chara found Sam and Frisk resting by a floating stream of argent, Frisk looking redder than usual. Sam had her helmet off for the first time that Chara knew, and she got a good look at the soldier: short brown hair, red skin, and dull green eyes with bags under them that twitched around at anything that could possibly be a hiding place for a demon. "Mind if I join you?"

"Come on over, the argent's fine," Frisk joked, chuckling quietly. "I know, I'm awful."

"As bad as the comedian, but you'll probably take that as a compliment." Chara rolled her eyes. "Stand up, I want to teach you some stuff."

"Like what? That I'll probably die?"

"More like how to not die, but close," Chara answered, waiting for Frisk to stand in front of her. "So, I haven't ever really taught."

"Obviously."

"Gee, thanks," Chara deadpanned. "Anyways, cut me some slack with this. I'll start by listing your weaknesses. You've relied on your reset to save you a number of times, making you reckless. You've fought the same enemies for decades, and while your dodging skills have improved, anything here would need new strategies, strategies that you don't have your reset to catch you while you make. You're weak in comparison to everything here. You don't have stamina, your longest fight has only ever been with Sans. To top all of that off, you're a pacifist by default."

"Hold on, you're a freaking conscientious objector?" Sam asked incredulously.

"I mean, the only things I've ever fought were naturally peaceful as well. I guess I only object if I think my enemy is innocent?" Frisk said, unsure.

"I don't think you'll have that problem here. You saw what the demons were like, how they're fueled by hate and only want to destroy, right?" Chara asked Frisk, trying to get them to see reason.

"Yeah… I did… and I also know that I won't be able to change them like I did in the Underground. I don't like it, but I can kill to survive."

"Good. With that out of the way, let's see what you and Flowey can do when you're combined like this. You got that Flowey?"

"Yeah? I'm right here on their fat head, I heard everything," Flowey replied, snarkily.

"Then show me what you got, be creative." Chara picked a spot next to Sam to watch as Flowey and Frisk experimented, growing roots and vines and seeing what they could do. Both Chara and Sam took mental notes of what they thought, and when Frisk finished they shared their ideas.

"To start, you have a major terrain advantage. Those roots grow really fast, and it almost looked like you had more arms at some points."

"It felt like I did," Frisk said, looking at some roots growing from her palm. "I'm tapped in with Flowey directly, so I can move these like my own hands, and he can move me with his roots. I don't really feel pain, and I feel way stronger than I ever was in the underground, even after the genocide route. With this level of control over Flowey's roots, it feels like I just got a cheat code."

"They can still be cut, Frisk. Even thorns aren't very strong," Flowey reminded the human. "Try to keep that in mind when you're, you know, about to die." Frisk rolled their eyes.

"I won't forget, sun _flowey,_ " Frisk said, slowly grinning. Flowey and Chara gave looks of disgust, but Sam chuckled. "So aside from things that bludgeon, cut, or stab, would it be possible to make something that can shoot?"

"Root guns? I dunno, never tried it since plants don't normally explode… but argent might do something about that… give me a minute," Flowey said, raising Frisk's arm and forming a pistol with his roots. He tried focusing argent in different ways and came up with different guns. "I managed to make some basic ammo: pistol, shotgun, and rifle. I could make pistol all day, but shotgun and rifle are a little trickier. You have unlimited everything, but I need some time to make those two, so use it… sparingly? Is that the word?"

"It is," Chara confirmed. "I know you used argent for the boom, but what's in the bullets?"

"Friendliness pellets." He gave a creepy smile. "You remember those, right Frisk?"

"Mmhm, I do. Btw, your scary face isn't that scary," they said, flicking where a nose would be. Chara snorted, holding in her laugh, while Sam didn't even try to hide her's.

"Flower kid, you just got punked," Chara wheezed, doubled over and still trying to hold in her laughter.

"ALRIGHT, ENOUGH WITH THE GIGGLING!" Flowey screamed at them, petals blushed green.

"Sounds like things have gotten better out here," Guts said, walking up alongside Joseph and Carmina. He turned to Frisk. "Alright now, kid?"

"Pretty good, I don't feel helpless at least." Guts nodded at this, an unreadable expression on his face. "At this point, I just need to work on speed and dodging."

"We'll take care of that later," Joseph interjected. "We're moving shop."

"Why's that?" Chara tilted her head. "Are there demons coming here?"

"They're everywhere, but they're grouping up around here, so yeah," Guts said, pointing past some rocks. On an open and dusty plain, a circle of demons was easily seen to be closing in.

"What'd we do to catch that kind of attention?" Sam asked, turning to Joseph. "We haven't killed _that_ many, have we?"

"I think it's the power we all have, plus the power you four all stole: argent. Whatever the reason, we have to leave now." They all nodded and began running to an outcrop of rock that would be easier to defend than the temple. "Everyone shorter than five feet stick close to somebody bigger than you."

"Got it," Frisk, Flowey, and Chara echoed, Frisk running alongside Sam and Chara next to Joseph. They reached the outcrop a minute or so before the demons would arrive, and got into position. Frisk tried to grow some traps under the dust around them, holes sealed with a thin layer of vines and covered in dust that were ready to impale anything that fell in.

"Flowey, I just had an idea," Frisk thought. "How long would it take you to brain hack a few of these guys, make them like me and have them shoot on their own guys?"

"I-I don't know a-about that," he stuttered, scared of the upcoming fight. "I'll try it and get back to you." And then the demons arrived.

Frisks traps worked well against the first wave, suddenly swallowing the smaller demons and hobbling the big ones. Their screams heightened in pitch from the holes in the ground, from war cry to pain. Flowey focused on a smaller demon to practice on that was still alive, wrapping roots around nerves and threading himself into its brain. He released it after a moment and watched as it clumsily climbed out of the hole and stumbled away.

"Darn it! I'll try again." He did it faster on the next one, and this time it emerged with a roar as it fired around randomly, occasionally hitting another demon with either fire or claws. The third time he got to the brain faster and tried to switch up friend and foe. "Almost… got it!" This time the demon leaped from the trap onto a hell knight, clawing out its eyes and biting away its skull. It was killed quickly, but Flowey had succeeded. "I need around ten seconds to switch them to fight for us, Frisk!"

"Awesome! Keep doing that!" Frisk thought to flowey, using the vines to strangle a few demons at a time and flay others with thorns, cutting through muscle and bone like butter. Bodyparts were sent flying with every swipe of her attacks, and spikes shot from the ground in random places to impale any demon unlucky enough to find her traps.

Guts was fighting in the thick of the demon horde, same as Joseph a short distance away, trying to thin out the others' workload. He cleaved three or four demons in half with each swing, blood and gore coating his sword like unholy paint. Even though he was being splashed by the viscera as well, his armor drank it as greedily as sand swallowing water, leaving it dark and pristine throughout the fight. Wounds that managed to penetrate or bend his armor were fixed in moments, and the pain only made him more dangerous.

Joseph was in his element: demons, weapons, and bloodshed. In some corner of his mind, he found it funny that these guys still tried to kill him after two thousand years. He'd mastered fighting them, turned war into art, and found the order in their chaos that made it oh so easy to avoid their attacks and slay them the instant they were in range.

Carmina usually worked better when she fought like Guts and Joseph, but the enormous shield in her one hand and the ax in her other were also comfortable. She'd changed into Havel's armor before the fight, expecting to need the stability. Most of the attacks were light enough to not worry about, and she could handle the heavy hitters well enough, so protecting Frisk and Flowey was easier than she thought. It would be a relief to change back into her light armor after this fight though.

Samantha made use of her marksman training and her dmr, popping heads with ease and speed. Anybody that got too close was slammed in the head by the stock or a knife, and then she kept firing. It hadn't taken long to figure out the way these guys moved, at which point it was business as usual. It was like fighting a less organized Covenant for her. If it weren't so fun she'd be bored.

Chara stuck tight to Frisk's blind spot, defending their back as they created a whirlwind of chlorophyll. Demons came quick but were forced into a chokepoint that made them easy prey, letting Chara slash them in the throat and dodge their swift but sloppy attacks. It wasn't easy for her, never having fought so many in a row prior to now, but she did well enough that neither she nor Frisk was hurt up to now.

Soon the demons thinned, and before they knew it the entire horde was in pieces on the ground underneath them. They ran to the nearest refuge they could find (a mountain this time) and hunkered down until they made another portal.

" _What should we look for next? Another warrior? A healer?_ " Carmina asked.

"I'm thinking a builder or someone that can fortify a location better than us," Sam supplied. "We need to be able to have a point of attack, a place that allows us to build our strength instead of having to run."

"I agree. We need an engineer," Joseph said. "We've got fighters, now we need to plan a base."

"Can't we borrow one of the run-down joints around here?" Guts asked. "They're solid, already here-"

"Crawling with demons and too big to defend, you're right," Joseph cut off. "I've tried using them once or twice, a long time ago when I was pretty new in hell, and even with more people it's not going to work. The effort to make one of those places defendable is a lot more than building a new one that's smaller. Whichever choice, we still need an engineer." He turned to Carmina. "Would you do the honors?" She nodded, and summoned up a disk of swirling argent. She had her eyes closed for a time, searching for someone who fit the bill, when finally the red cloud collapsed inward.

On the other side of the hole was a metal corridor, blood-spattered and full of scrap metal. Unearthly screams echoed faintly from a ways off. Coming closer was the sound of metal boots clanging against the floor, heavy and hurried, along with shallow breathing. They readied their weapons just in case it was something dangerous, but Carmina's portal proved to have spot-on accuracy when a man in an armored space suit came walking around the corner. He stopped at the sight of everyone on the other side of the hellish portal.

"What the hell? Am I hallucinating again?" he muttered loudly. A roar came from behind him, making the man face back the way he came for a moment and then turn to the portal again. "Screw it, as long as you guys don't kill me I'm coming through, imaginary or not." He sprinted forward and dived through the hole, checking over his shoulder to watch as a massive creature made of rotting flesh came thumping into view. "If you can, close that thing quick, dammit!" The portal snapped shut before the thing got too close, and the man fell onto the ground and sighed in relief. "I… am way too… sleep deprived…" Immediately after this proclamation, he went limp in the dust and fell asleep.


	7. Loudly Clacking Keyboard Noises

The armored guy that fell through the portal was shaking in his sleep and had been for a few hours. Carmina said that his body had been running on fumes for close to a week, and any sleep he'd gotten in that time was less than what was required for his body if he slept at all.

"What do you think kept him up?" Frisk asked Carmina, making shapes with some roots in her hands.

" _Stress, battle, more of those monsters like the one chasing him,_ " she listed off. " _I can only guess, but he's ready to collapse from dehydration and lack of food. As far as I know, the only thing keeping him moving was fear and adrenaline. You can see the result of using those as a crutch for too long._ " He suddenly arched his back in the dust, screaming in a very strange way, and began flailing about. Argent formed patterns above his prone body and tried to enter his suit, but it blocked the red mist from invading him.

"Should we restrain him?" Sam asked, wondering (along with everyone else) what was going on.

"He could hurt us or himself if we do that," Guts said. "Frisk, suspend him above the ground with vines but don't restrict his movement." They wrapped his torso and gently cradled his arms and legs, lifting the man until he wasn't touching anything. They continued screaming, seemingly in two tones at once and at a higher pitch than one might expect. Carmina gestured to a spot on the side of his helmet, and the others watched as the argent began carving symbols into the metal, working everywhere at once. None of them recognized any of the writing. One prominent and repeated figure was a pointed double helix, and they were left to wonder what it was. After a few minutes, the argent dissipated, and the man's screaming died away along with his jerking. When he went still, Frisk put him back on the ground and Carmina checked on him.

" _He's alive, and appears to be more stable than before,_ " Carmina reported. He groaned and sat up from his place on the floor, holding his head and swaying. He looked up and jerked his head around to look at everyone, drawing a weird looking gun that had three lasers shining from the front of it and jumping to his feet as he scrambled away from the middle of the group.

"Where am I? Who are you?" he demanded, breathing quickly, and trying to look everywhere at once.

"Calm down, we're not the ones you should be worried about," Sam said, gesturing with her hands for everyone to give him some space. She recognized paranoia when she saw it. "I'm Samantha, that's Guts, Joseph, Carmina, Frisk, and Chara. You jumped through the red portal, remember?" He nodded slowly, still stiff as a board but slowing his breathing. "Right now, you're in the actual, very real hell, and at the moment I'd gather that you're safer here than you were a few hours ago." He barked a hoarse laugh at her, lacking mirth and sounding near to insanity

"Hell?! Listen, this isn't hell, that fucking Necromorph outbreak on Tau Valantis was hell! While we're at it, the Ishimura and the Sprawl were hell! If this is some kinda trick to get me to save the universe again, count me the fuck out, okay? I've gone through that shit three fucking times, and I'm done! No blackmail, no single person left alive in the entire universe could make me want to 'keep fighting the good fight,' got me?! I don't even know why I was still fighting… did you say a few hours ago?" he stopped mid-rant, confused. When he noticed his suit, he looked at himself in a panic and raised his gun again. "What did you do?!"

"Nothing, the red stuff that's floating around called argent carved that into your suit not twenty minutes ago. You were thrashing around and screaming like two people in the same body," Sam said, hands raised in a placating manner. "Look, whatever happened to you or whoever you think we are, we have no clue what's been going on. Calm down, and we can talk, alright?"

"You sound just like everyone else that's ever tried to get me on their side, or were trying to 'help' me," he said, growling. "I don't buy into your bullshit!" Before he could begin firing on the six humans (and one flower), Frisk suddenly restrained him with vines, yanking his gun away and forcing him to sit on the ground. He struggled like mad, shouting obscenities and garbled nonsense. A sudden clang split the noise in half, leaving silence. Guts had smacked him, and he'd immediately shut up in favor of staring at the furious warrior.

"Shut. Up," Guts growled. "Shut your goddamn mouth. You're worse than a woman I used to know, back when she was still a bitch. If you don't shut up, I'm going to split your fucking body in half, skull to ass, in one swing. We're not the enemy, we don't come from wherever the fuck you did, and we're not going to take any more of your shit." The man nodded, some survival instinct telling him to listen to Guts. "Good. Now answer the fucking questions."

"What do you want to know?" he asked, paranoid but in the moment.

"Let's start with names. I've introduced everyone here, so what's your name?" Sam asked.

"Isaac Clarke, engineer, a survivor of three Necromorph outbreaks and destroyer of Markers."

"Necromorphs?" Joseph asked. "What are they?"

"The product of the Brethren Moon's influence through the Markers," Isaac explained. "They program human minds, make them insane, and then change them into Necromorphs. Corpses are changed into rotting monsters, men women and children. The Necromorphs make more corpses, and add them to their numbers. The only way to kill them is through dismemberment, hack off their limbs or destroy enough of their bodies and they'll die."

"Sounds awful nasty," Guts said. "How'd you destroy Markers?"

"I got lucky. When the Marker signal programmed me, I fought my way back out of dementia and dragged an understanding of them with me." He pointed to the double helix symbols on his armor. "They look like this, some of them as big as a human, while others can be as big as skyscrapers."

"Where'd they come from?" Frisk asked.

"There was originally only one on Earth, a black Marker, but the Government made more since they thought they produced infinite energy. They're just conduits though. They're like radio antennae, interpreting signals from the Brethren Moons so that they can affect intelligent species."

"Why do all of this?" Sam asked, curious about the plots of these things.

"Their end goal is Convergence, taking in as much organic material as possible and forming another moon. A long time ago, they tried to do it to an alien species, but they figured out what was happening and froze their planet solid along with their moon, stopping it halfway. It was intended to destroy the moon, which I managed to finish doing with the help of their tech. Other than that, the only way to kill a moon is to destroy the black Marker that started the epidemic. Nobody gets a happy ending and comes back from being a Necro, you're dead and then you're twisted by the signal to suit their needs."

"Almost sounds like the eclipse," Guts said, thinking back to the official worst day of his life. "A token of a higher power dropped into a world, activated, and then a sacrifice that forms a new being. You've got moons, I had Griffith and the Godhand."

"I'm still not entirely sure I haven't hallucinated all of this, dementia and all that," Isaac said. "I could be getting eaten by a Necro right now and I wouldn't know it."

"I might be able to fix that," Frisk piped up, speaking for the first time. "If you trust me with your head, I could possibly rewire your brain and fix your dementia."

"How?" Isaac asked, disbelieving. The roots that suddenly sprouted from her hand freaked him out. "What the fuck?"

"I can do this thanks to Flowey," Frisk said, answering his unasked question by pointing to the flower's face growing above her ear. Isaac had just thought it was a hair clip. "He grew roots throughout my body, and we share space in my head. We were talking over fixing your brain while you were flipping out." Isaac was obviously uncomfortable with the thought of someone messing with his brain, especially someone who looked like they were halfway to being a Necro, but a glance from Guts silenced him, and he gulped down his own fear.

"Just, ah… be really careful, okay?" Frisk nodded, and walked to Isaac's back, placing her palm against the back of his head. He felt a sting on his scalp, which numbed soon, and then he felt something _squirm_. He fought against the instinct to rip out the _thing_ invading his skull, fidgeting as the child tried to fix him. He saw patterns at first, then his left eye began twitching, and he began to bleed from his nose. "Okay, what's going on back there?!"

"I can't help that, even as thin as these roots are they're still making bridges between brain cells and your body doesn't know what to do with the messages. Keep still, I'm almost done," Frisk said, pacifying the engineer.

After a few more symptoms that ranged from goosebumps and swelling tongue, Frisk managed to find the problem. His brain was arranged in a pattern somehow, cells cut and moved around in odd ways all over. They fixed and moved the cells around for a minute, and then retracted their roots. Isaac leaned over and vomited when Frisk finally got all of the roots out and touched the back of his head to check for blood, only a spot was left to prove that anything had invaded his mind.

"Are you better now?" Frisk asked, but got a finger held up in response. The engineer wiped his mouth, and then looked around at everyone. The distrust was still there, but the overwhelming fear was gone.

"Yeah, I think so," he said, looking down at the symbols on his armor. He could read them, but they didn't make him hallucinate anymore. "Nothing seems to be wrong at least… thanks, kid."

"Technically, she's older than you and me put together," Sam stated, making Isaac look at her with confusion. "It's a long story involving time travel, leave it at that." A roar interrupted her, and Joseph cursed.

"We've stayed here too long, we have to go," he said, everyone arming themselves.

"Wait, you weren't kidding when you said-" Isaac said to Sam.

"Yup, hell. Move your feet," Sam interrupted, following everyone else as they began running. Demons that crawled over rocks and jumped at them were shot to bits or slashed to ribbons by the more experienced fighters as they ran. Isaac managed to kill a few demons with his weapons, but he was more focused on keeping up with the others. Chara defended Frisk from any demons that got through the line of men and women ahead of them, gouging out eyes and throats with her knife and keeping as close as possible to Frisk, who was also doing a good job of lashing demons with Flowey's roots and puncturing various organs at once.

They stopped running when they reached a facility that had most of its wiring exposed, limiting the demons' mobility and allowing the ragtag group to funnel their enemy into a decently well-defended spot. Frisk laid traps into the walls and ceiling, ensuring that they wouldn't be surprised from those directions. Isaac laid down mines by the doorways and made a lattice of explosives around everyone, a minefield that demons would have a tough time crossing. They finished just in time, the demons swarmed in.

Screams and blood spilled from the roof and walls, gallons of red proving Frisk's efficiency, as the unholy monsters blew themselves apart in the explosives set by Isaac. Carmina cast powerful spells, and anyone with a gun was firing into the tsunami of enemies.

When most of the mines were used, Guts and Joseph sprung into the fray, ripping and tearing every demon they could reach. Sam focused her fire on the demons around the two, supporting them with covering fire. Chara broke rank and dashed out to join them, knife in hand and a smile on her face. She was as fast as the other slayers, but so small and precise that demons didn't even see her before they were dead.

"Chara!" Frisk shouted, doubling her efforts to wipe away the demons converging on Sam, Carmina, and Isaac.

"Don't overdo it, she's fine and we can handle this," Sam said, Carmina nodding in agreement. Frisk couldn't hear her very well over the noise and grew more concerned about her sort-of friend. Vines and roots shot out from the kid's body, wrapping up limbs like muscles and armor, protecting their torso with layers of bark-like tendrils. Thorns sprouted from the living suit, turning Frisk into a living weapon and giving them claws, and they too sprang away to fight in the thick of the demon swarm.

Frisk was seeing red. They recognized this feeling from their time in the genocide runs: bloodlust. Their eyes turned as red as their vision, and a wide grin spread across their face. They laughed with glee as they stabbed into every new demon and sucked out their blood, draining their strength and giving it to themselves. It was familiar in a way, killing things for strength was no foreign concept to Frisk after all. They realized that despite their pacifist nature, they'd missed doing this, and now had no reason to hold back from slaying true monsters, not the innocent population of the Underground. They became more ruthless and fought like the demons around them. Flowey felt this change in Frisk and shuddered at the thought that he bonding with Frisk was the cause of it.

" _This isn't your doing, Asriel,_ " Frisk said in her mind, using his real name. " _These demons aren't like the monsters we know. They kill, and conquer, and destroy any world that they invade. It's not a death penalty to them, it's defending everyone who would be killed without our help._ "

" _I get it,_ " Flowey replied, " _I really do… but you still seem… off. Since when did you enjoy killing?_ "

" _Since I was given something to kill without consequence,_ " Frisk grinned," _and when I realized that fact. Can you make a single excuse for them?_ " Another skull was popped, a jugular was speared, a chest was left with a gaping wound. Flowey decided.

" _No, I can't._ "

" _Then I'll continue to enjoy this._ " Frisk suddenly shouted to everyone else. "Get down!" Vines covered in thorns whipped out in all directions, spearing demons that didn't manage to dodge the attack. They began to spin, drilling into the kebabed demons, and then were spun around the room like a hurricane, showering everyone in demonic blood. The demons were all dead.

"Nice finisher, kid," Guts complimented. "Good to see you've gotten over that pacifist bull."

"I've been over it, I only just learned to enjoy some quality demon slaying." Frisk was clean of any blood and used their roots to soak up what was splattered on the walls and on everyone in the room. "Plus, demon blood tastes like hot sauce." They licked their lips, "… mmm, spicy." Curious, Joseph removed his helmet and licked his bloody finger. His eyebrows raised.

"Well, whaddya know?" he said, replacing his helmet. He looked around at the room they were in. "This isn't a safe place, too many ways for demons to get in."

"If they fight anything like Necromorphs, I agree," Isaac commented. "Vents, engineering passages, anything big enough to fit through, they'll kill you from." He looked around as well. "Then again, we might be able to use it."

" _What do we do?_ " Carmina asked.

"I just need scrap metal to fill in the holes, I have an electric welder in this suit. Find me a lot of scrap and I'll make this place safe," Isaac explained, getting nods from everyone. He turned to Frisk. "I may need your help holding some of the metal in place, so stick close for a while." They gave him a thumbs-up. "And if there's anything around here that can do micro-scale work on electronics I might be able to create some weapons."

"He was a good choice after all," Guts said to Joseph, receiving a grunt of agreement.

* * *

 **Hi everyone. I know that I've slowed down on updates with all three of my stories, but things have been going on, and I'll likely get even more delayed during the holidays. This is going to be the first year in _forever_ that I haven't worn a costume for Halloween, so that's making me el depresso. I'm working on three different chapters at once for all of my stories (one each) and so you may see new updates for those pretty soon. Aside from all that jazz, I hope you continue to read and enjoy my stories, and I'll keep trying to figure out how to use a keyboard enough to make coherent sentences. Later!**


	8. The Answer to All Your Prayers

It turns out that a portable micro-manufacturer was locked up in a workshop in the basement level, which would come in handy later for Isaac. The engineer was currently working on welding basic traps into holes and covering up whatever space was left with thick metal sheets. Frisk assisted by using vines to hold the metal in place while they were welded on, and the two passed the time by asking and answering questions.

"So, how does the whole 'shockpoint' thing work? From the sounds of it, it bends space, but how?"

"I'm an engineer, not a physicist," Isaac shrugged. "All I know is that it works and is reliable. It's better than cryo travel anyways, sleeping for fifty plus years in a freaking box-," he shivered "-no thanks… Hey, I've been trying to guess for a while, but are you a boy or a girl?"

"Wait, you really can't tell?" Frisk asked.

"Nope, can't," Isaac admitted.

"I'm a girl, like Iron Man," Frisk said, making Isaac look at her with confusion. She grinned. "A Fe male!" Isaac groaned as she cackled at her own joke.

"Oh god, puns," he complained, fighting a smile. "Moving on from awful jokes, I heard that you were stuck in a time loop. How old does that make you?"

"Physically, I'm like twelve, but because of the resets, I'm about, uh… geez, close to sixty," Frisk said, surprised at the number herself. She pulled in her lips and adopted a croaky voice. "Would you kindly hand me my cane, young man?" Isaac snorted, finishing with another piece of metal. As they moved on to another hole, Frisk continued. "Carmina has it worse I hear. She's technically dead, and so she doesn't age. I heard she's over a thousand years old, and Joseph's almost twice that."

"I'm surrounded by old people, it's only a matter of time before I get a hand-knit sweater for Christmas," Isaac joked. Joseph happened to be passing by at that moment with an armful of junk parts and broken weapons.

"I'll knit your intestines to your lungs if you really want me to knit you something," he deadpanned. Isaac turned a little green at the thought while Frisk snickered. "I have all the junk you wanted, where do I set it?"

"Next to the bench over there," Isaac gestured, "anywhere is fine. If you have any weapons you want me to improve, set 'em down next to the scrap as well." Isaac ate his own words three minutes later when he finished sealing the holes in the room. Joseph had laid out his entire arsenal next to the scrap, and everyone else had contributed three or four weapons themselves. He sighed as he sat down, picking up the first weapon. "It's gonna be a looong night." Everyone talked with Isaac when their shift came up later that night, checking in on his progress and sharing stories back and forth in the dark. Isaac yawned and blinked back his sleep while finishing up a carbon coating on Guts' sword.

"You should sleep, these can wait," Sam suggested, sitting nearby. "There aren't any clocks around here, but I can guess that you've been working for close to six hours straight." He chuckled quietly.

"I'm _very_ well adjusted to sleep deprivation. You don't exactly catch many z's when the threat of being stabbed by revived corpses is constant and possible from quite literally anywhere. Forget monsters under the bed, they're in the damn walls."

"All the more reason to make up for lost time," she answered. "Any chance at sleeping is a chance you take, in my opinion. Even the Spartans can't go for a whole lot longer without sleep than the average soldier and expect to stay on their feet." When Isaac didn't respond, she realized that he'd fallen asleep sitting up. Sam arranged him so that he wouldn't fall over later, and left him alone until it was Guts' shift.

He inspected the job that Isaac had done and nodded in satisfaction; his blade was even darker now but had a dull shine to it that showed the lines of the weapon. A black sword for the black swordsman was fitting. From the explanation that Isaac had given him earlier, this coating was called graphene and would make his sword a whole lot sharper and more durable, things that Guts liked to hear. He was beginning to like this engineer.

Isaac woke up a few hours later, yawned, and got right back to work. Everyone was awake by the time he really got into a rhythm, and next to nothing would pull him out of his element. He finished up modifying Carmina's weapons (a ridiculously huge ax and a couple swords with strange designs) with the same treatment as Guts' sword and upgrading the internals on Sam's dmr (smart scope, hair trigger and updated firing mechanism for faster fire rate, coated interior barrel, and a shock absorbing stock). He had to ask Joseph a few questions about some of the more powerful weapons at his disposal, but otherwise, he did what he could to make fighting even a little easier for everyone. Needless to say, everyone expressed their gratitude to Isaac for the modifications.

"I don't know exactly what you did to my sword," Guts said, giving the Dragonslayer a practice swing and not noticing any weight difference, "but I like it."

"I didn't know that the dmr could be improved. I'm happy to be surprised," Sam said, smiling at the gun in her hands.

All around it was like Christmas morning in the UEG facility. When things had settled down a little bit, Isaac walked over to Frisk and revealed a strange looking knife from behind his back. It was as long as her forearm and was slightly curved with one sharp edge, while the back bristled with spikes. It had a flat end as well, making it look like the evil cousin of a meat cleaver.

"I noticed you didn't have a weapon like everyone else, so I made one from some of the scrap metal lying around," Isaac explained. "I figured a sword would be too much for you, but a knife isn't much use against demons when it doesn't have any weight, hence the cleaver look, and the back can be used as a saw in a pinch." The gift was much appreciated in Frisk's eyes, and she gently removed the weapon from Isaac's hands. "Plus, both sides are sharp enough to hack through just about anything in one swing."

"…Thank you," she smiled up at him. "You-"

"Didn't get me one?!" Chara asked, incredulous. "'A knife isn't effective against demons,' huh? I'm using one! Where's my badass cleaver?!"

"Calm down, Chara, I was just getting to that," Isaac said, smiling as he revealed his other hand. In his palm sat another strange weapon, two in fact. They were hatchets and were as devilishly clever in their design as Frisk's cleaver. The head was reminiscent of a fireman's ax, though it had a curved knife instead of the traditional spike, and the metal handles were bent lightly at the bottom, with comfortable looking grips right above the curves. Chara was practically drooling and dropped her knife from limp hands as she slowly reached for the hatchets, eyes staring at the weapons.

"Gimme!" she suddenly yelled, lunging forwards to claim the weapons, and laughing maniacally when her fingers found purchase. Frisk turned to Isaac.

"I'll say 'thank you' in her place, I don't think she can talk right now," Frisk joked, watching as Chara swung at invisible demons with reckless abandon. "These are great weapons, Isaac, thank you again." He waived her praise off.

"It was no trouble. I wish I could get you two some armor as well, buuut that's a little out of my depth," he said sheepishly.

"It's fine, Chara probably wouldn't accept it anyway," Frisk said, grinning conspiratorily. She leaned over and whispered in his ear. "I sometimes think she might even be a masochist."

"Gross," the engineer deadpanned. "She'd have loved my universe then: getting stabbed, getting shot, getting stabbed again – great times, lemme tell ya." Frisk giggled. Joseph called everyone to attention and halted Chara's hatchet spree.

"So, we're rested and caught up to speed, our weapons are as good as they're going to get for now, and I personally think we're ready to take on hoards of demons. Is there anything else to do, or should we get busy ripping and tearing some demon ass?"

" _I have a suggestion, actually,_ " Carmina signed. " _Isaac, you said that you had the ability to build Markers, yes?_ " At his nod, she continued. " _Would you be able to give it a new purpose?_ "

"Like what? As far as I know, they're just really powerful, ancient antennae," Isaac said. He listed off on his fingers, "They carry signals and energy, cause Necromorph outbreaks, and somehow have the ability to change the structures of living beings. Other than that, I don't know jack."

" _Could you build one to, say, absorb and store Argent energy?_ " Carmina suggested. " _From what I understand, Argent is a vital resource for the demons. If we were able to take it away from them, they would be helpless._ "

"… That could work," Guts said. "They use it for everything, even making more demons. Without Argent, their endless hordes would suddenly become desperate to regain the energy and would be easily drawn in for slaughter. It seems, though, that this depends entirely on the abilities of Isaac." Everyone turned to the engineer, who was deep in thought.

"… I may be able to do this, but it's a big maybe. Give me some time to work on a small scale version," Isaac said, walking back to the bench.

"In the meantime," Sam said, looking at Frisk and Chara, "we need to polish up your fighting skills. Let's go find a spot to practice." They left the room, and silence prevailed, the only sound the quiet tinkering of an engineer and the slow roar of the bonfire. Guts and Joseph looked at one another.

"What happens after this, if we succeed?" Guts asked. "I somehow can't imagine we all just dance for a few hours and go on our merry way, then forget this ever happened." Joseph shrugged.

"The demons will be gone, so I won't have that anymore. Who knows? Maybe this wasn't the only hell? Might be fun to relearn my enemy," he said, but his heart wasn't in it. "We'll figure it out later, for now, we have to wait and focus on the future butchering."


	9. An Impossible Solution

After a few hours, Isaac had progressed.

"I can direct a flow of argent energy through it, but there's a problem," Isaac said. "It's not a battery, it can't hold anything. Think of it as a cable, or a river, it only directs a stream, it can't hold it."

"In other words, this is half finished," Joseph simplified. "It works as a beacon and a siphon, but that's it."

"What if it directed the argent into the people that could hold it?" Guts asked. "Sam, Frisk, and Carmina are all argent hogs, and my brand lets me absorb it as well."

"We don't know what that could do," Joseph protested. "You're talking about thirteen dimensions worth of energy being compressed into three or four souls, that's just asking for trouble."

"I'm sorry, did you just say thirteen dimensions?" Isaac asked. "As in, this whole place is sucking the life from thirteen separate universes?"

"Yeah," Joseph said simply.

"Assuming none of them are close to heat-death, we're going to need a way to siphon more energy in a faster manner, and find something that can hold all of it." They went quiet, thinking about the problem. Joseph suddenly put a hand to the side of his helmet.

"Where have you been this whole time? What?" he asked. The others wondered what he was doing. "It could work, but-… yeah, I guess it's worth a shot." He turned to everyone else. "Before you ask, I have an AI with me that I managed to save from the UAC facility a while ago. He has a plan that both solves and needs the energy we need to steal from hell: we use it to build him a body."

"What the fuck?" Isaac said. Guts and Carmina felt about the same. "Are you out of your goddamn mind? It's a miracle that I can even move as much energy as I can, there's no way I can direct it in such a way as to make a body!"

"He says that you won't have to, he will, with help from Carmina and Sam," Joseph explained. "He designed storage that could contain the energy of stars, and he says that he has plans for a body with ridiculous energy needs. Normally VEGA would be looking for efficiency, but here he's looking for ways to waste energy and be as effective as possible. Once finished, he'll even be able to help us fight." Isaac's brain was approaching overload by this point.

"I- you- what- you- GRRRR, fine! Let me talk with the tin can first though!" Isaac shouted. He snatched the chip from Joseph's hand, and stomped off to the bench to get the details on this plan, growling "pure insanity!" and "bullshit!" along the way. The sound of him arguing could be heard for the next half hour, and he returned to the group afterward with a defeated air about himself. Frisk, Chara, and Sam had all returned during this time and listened in as he sighed.

"Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein would shit their pants if they saw what VEGA had cooked up," he started. "I don't know how the fuck it does it, by all rights it _shouldn't,_ but somehow it fucking works."

"What does, and who's VEGA?" Sam asked. Isaac held up VEGA's chip.

"This scientific bastard of an AI is VEGA, and he found a way to siphon the energy of thirteen separate universes, which is the theoretical amount of energy stored in hell by the way, into building a body. Not just any body though, a _motherfucking dragon_."

"…You've got to be kidding me," Frisk said. Her jaw was practically on the floor, as was everyone else', except for Isaac and Joseph.

"Yeah, same thought that first went through my head," Isaac deadpanned. "But and I _cannot_ believe I'm saying this; the math checks out. It can work. All he needs is help directing the flow of argent from Sam and Carmina, and he'll do the rest. However, that hinges on you two being able to handle the equivalent of around a thousand stars worth of energy running through your veins per second for ten minutes, and your agreement in helping this crazy bastard build a dragon body."

" _If it stops hell, I'm in,_ " Carmina signed, determined.

"Same for me," Sam said. Isaac threw his hands in the air.

"That's it, we're all absolutely fucking insane," he said, ignoring Chara's comment that "sanity is for boring people." He plopped his hands in his lap and looked around at everyone. "I guess… I build this thing, and we start fighting when it's done."

"VEGA says to build more than one, in case we don't have a perfect defense," Joseph said. "Our powerhouses will be helping him build a body, we're going to need a backup plan." Isaac nodded.

"They'll be small enough that we can hide them easily, and I can build one in about two hours." The plan was ready, all they needed was a place to build a dragon body and a few hours to make some markers. Isaac had one last requirement. "When you look for a spot to build the dragon, it has to be huge."

"How big are we talking?" Chara asked.

"Aircraft hangar, bigger if possible," Isaac said. "VEGA intends to use as much energy as possible when building his body, so the thing is going to be massive." Everyone who would be looking nodded and set out. Guts and Joseph stayed behind as guards for Isaac. Five hours and two-and-a-half markers later, Sam found an underground cavern with plenty of room for the build to happen. The only problem was, it was stuffed to the brim with demons.

"We need your help clearing this place out," she said over the radio. "There are high-level demons in here, a lot of them, and we don't have the time to do this by ourselves. The location is perfect though, and if VEGA's dragon butt is going to fill the place, he should be able to bust out the side of the mountain pretty easy."

"Got it," Guts said. "We'll be there in a minute." He and Joseph strapped the two completed markers to their backs, each big enough to fit them comfortably inside if they were hollow, and helped tie the half-finished one onto Isaac's back. They got ready at the door since demons were bound to have gathered outside by now, and prepared for a mad dash across the dirt to a cave entrance a few dozen yards away. "Go!"

The door flew open, releasing the three men upon a horde of demons. Guts and Joseph were barely slowed by the extra weight but focused on defending Isaac for the moment, since he was having trouble moving as fast as them. Demon heads rolled, split, and splattered under the attack, and they made good time to the cave. Guts blew up the roof of the entrance to buy time, and they worked their way further in. When they found the cavern that Sam mentioned, they found that it really was massive, big enough that it was almost the size of a football stadium. The demons walking through it were a problem that would soon be fixed.

Two heavy thuds announced the presence of the two humans the demons feared more than anything else, and they retreated away from them for a moment. The spell was broken when a demon screamed at the intruders, and the rush was met with the brutality that one would expect from the Doom Slayer and the Black Swordsman.

The other side of the gathering was simultaneously attacked by the rest of the humans, the ground rolling with vines and the air filled with bullets and argent magic, massacring the demons before they had a chance to identify the threat. When the demons got their bearings, the entire force split down the middle, half attacking Guts and Joseph, the other trying to kill Chara, Frisk, Sam, and Carmina. The battle lasted three minutes; by the end of it, the ground was soaked in boiling blood and demon entrails.

"Isaac, get to work on the rest of the markers, we'll start hiding them around the area," Joseph ordered, picking up the marker he'd carried. The engineer nodded and continued working on the spiral statue, using argent he funneled along his suit's surface to compress the hell soil into the shape of the marker. The completed markers were buried as they were finished, and they decided that four was enough backups. VEGA's chip was plugged into a terminal that was hooked up to the machines that would manipulate the energy into a body.

"So, how does this work anyways?" Frisk asked. "It's energy, not matter."

"You're half right," Isaac said. "Question: what makes up matter?" Frisk was stumped. "On the most basic level, everything is made of energy. It's in a different form, but that's like saying water and ice are two entirely separate things. VEGA is going to change the argent energy into matter, and then build his body from that."

"Got it, kind of," Frisk said. "I'm just glad I won't be working on it."

"Well, so am I," Isaac said, activating the first marker. Immediately, energy like glowing blood was sucked from the air into the statue and shot towards Carmina and Sam. They took the beams into their backs and stumbled under the force of it, but caught themselves and began directing the energy flow according to VEGA's instructions. The framework of the beast took up a majority of the space in the cavern, as small as VEGA was willing to go with the energy requirement, available work room, and time constraint. "They need a whole day of time to build it, and we can't afford for them to not have it."

"I'll set up traps," Frisk said, quickly followed by Isaac. Chara, Guts, and Joseph spent some time creating mounds of dirt and rocks for quick cover around the cavern.

"So, how are we supposed to defend every part of the dragon until it's done?" Chara asked. "If you haven't noticed, it fills the whole place, and we're building defenses right underneath it. What's the point if the demons can just climb on top of it and hack it to pieces?" Joseph pointed towards the marker.

"That thing is going to negate any argent based attacks they try to throw at it and help us build it faster. If they try and claw at VEGA's body, the raw energy will disintegrate them." He pointed at the two women who were directing the streams of bright red energy, skin nearly black now with the red tint. "Those two are the only weak point they'll be able to damage."

"Ah, that makes sense," Chara said. "How long do you think it will take them to figure out all of that?"

"I'm betting they don't," Guts said. "They'll attack everything in here just to try and stop the power drain, and they won't stop piling up the corpses even when it doesn't seem like it's working."

"Same as him," Joseph said, going back to pressing down red dirt and rocks on another defensive mound. Chara scoffed.

"Demons really are stupid." Soon the defenses were ready for when the demons came, and every passage except for the biggest one was collapsed. It had been three hours, and another twenty-one were ahead of the team. Everyone not dedicated to building VEGA's body slept in shifts of two hours until everyone was rested.

Thirteen hours remained. Sounds of demon tramping were heard from the biggest tunnel at this point and ranged from tiny to huge demons by the sounds of it. Everyone loaded or readied their weapons for the coming fight.

Hellspawn spewed out from the tunnel in a tidal wave of flesh and machine, getting caught in or blown up by the traps in the ground. The humans ran to fight them when they were halfway across the cavern. The line of demons couldn't push past Frisk's wall of thorny vines and were trapped in a kill box by their own forces rushing into the cavern. The slaughter went on for hours, the dying screams of demons filling the cavern as a twisted form of music, and the weapons in human hands were the instruments.

The dragon was nearly finished when more demons managed to dig their way through the booby-trapped and collapsed tunnels, prompting the defenders to encircle the two humans. Three of the markers had been destroyed by now, only two left in working condition. One was still hidden, but the other hadn't slowed the flow of energy it directed since it had taken the place of the last marker. Sam and Carmina were now so dark from the argent that they were indistinguishable from shadows, and looking at them directly confused your eyes.

The demons destroyed the last hidden marker, leaving only the one that was sitting between Sam and Carmina to do the job. They were minutes away from completing VEGA's body now. A cyberdemon tore through the ranks of hell, almost sprinting in its mission to run down the two humans that were draining the life from hell. Guts leaped towards the giant enemy, slashing away at anything he could hit with his sword, leaving one less person to defend the two women.

VEGA began to download himself into the dragon's brain, body finished and ready for a mind, when the cyberdemon smacked Guts aside and charged Sam and Carmina.

The humans were overrun. The demons swarmed the dragon, no longer burned by their own stolen power, and began slashing away at the scales and hide of the unmoving beast.


	10. The Wolf

**Been a while since I put a note at the beginning of the chapter. I'm (not) sorry that I left things on a cliffhanger, but I wanted to build** _ **some**_ **amount of suspense for this story. I'll admit that I did not intend or even have a clue that this story would progress the way it did, and because of that, the story suffered. Parts were rushed, others slow, and it's as big of a jumbled mess as you can have and still call it a story. It doesn't even really have a true plot. But you know what? I'm happy with where it went, and that I made something all of you found the time to read. In this chapter (and the following ones that will detail the end of hell) I'm doing something I've never done before, so hold onto your butts, drop your socks, grab your cocks, and get ready for a rip-tearing ride through hell.**

VEGA roared, stopping everyone dead in their tracks, demon or human. The demons hadn't so much as scratched his hide, and as VEGA began moving they leaped off and began running for their lives. Frisk took the moment to really look at the dragon, admiring the detail the two humans and AI had put into it.

Black scales that allowed flames to spill from his chest, folded wings pressed to his back, bulging muscles rippling beneath tough skin, and deadly claws ready to rip and tear on the front and back paws. His fangs were visible whether or not he closed his mouth, and small spikes dotted his head and face, more noticeable as an almost-beard on his chin. His horns, however, stole the show: Frisk couldn't count how many there were, but they were all unique. Some twisted, others curved, a few were spiraled, and some were antlers, but all of them were glowing blood red. He was also enormous, taking up most of the cavern despite its size, and his wings wouldn't fit in here at all if he spread them.

VEGA took a few deep breaths, snorting smoke and billowing fire from his chest. "This is… different," he rumbled, looking himself over. He lowered his head close to the group, and they climbed on him to his back. "Brace yourselves."

He clawed the ground to get a feel for the traction he had and then barreled towards the wall marked by everyone with a large "X" before they'd been attacked, and broke through the side of the mountain head-first. Everyone took cover from the falling rocks and dust of the breakout but emerged from cover to look over the hellscape. A demon horde bigger than any they'd ever seen stretched across the dusty and rocky landscape, frozen in fear of the dragon freshly born from the mountain.

Nobody in the group could have possibly known it, but the Doom Slayer wasn't the only legend in the bible of hell. As their ruler is described as a dragon, so too was their destroyed, a dragon of shadow and blood that would sweep death across the land and bring about the downfall of Hell. As written in the old texts:

"A beast terrible in strength and ferocity shall be born from the stone, scales black with the smoke of its fire, and it shall deliver unto Hell the destruction it brings unto countless worlds a thousandfold. It shall drink the very life from the soil, and the air, and the water, and the weapons crafted in the forges until everything is turned to rubble. Cursed be the name of this beast…"

" **Ejnetsinu,** " the unholy masses muttered in fear and awe. Power crackled between the plates of his scales and his horns, flowing argent energy that had leaked from his body.

"I cannot hold this energy forever," VEGA said. "Despite my calculations and efforts, I must still expend the energy."

"Then put it to good use, VEGA," Joseph said, leaping from the back of the dragon. The others followed suit.

"Acknowledged." VEGA inhaled deeply and unleashed a roar that outstripped his previous one. It shook the ground and pushed back the nearest demons with visible shockwaves distorting the air in front of VEGA, and the human party covered their ears to defend from the sound. The army of hell turned tail and ran for their lives, climbing over one another to escape the end of hell, and cries of the name Ejnetsinu spread across the ranks like a wildfire of fear. Everyone turned on their headsets that they'd found or repaired, and went over the strategy one last time.

"VEGA will be doing a lot of the work here, but we're on cleanup duty since he can't get underground," Guts said. "They'll all go into any hole they can squeeze into, and we're going to kill them in their own graves. Frisk, Chara, stick together, the rest of us will cover as much ground as we can by splitting up and taking on the tunnels and building we can get to. Ready?" He got a nod from everyone, and they all ran in different directions.

Guts' wolf-shaped helmet swallowed his head with a clang and the jagged eye slits of the armor glowed red. He ran off at an inhuman pace, evidenced by the snapping and cracking heard as he ran. If his armor weren't healing him constantly or numbing his pain he would have been out of the fight the first second of his run.

He quickly encountered a crowd of demons running for a gap in some rocks, but his advance was noticed and they turned to attack him. His bloodlust-addled state had him grinning at them, and his sword left its sheath in an almost gleeful manner. He'd missed fighting for his life among crowds of demons if he was honest with himself, but he promised to make up for lost time on this campaign.

His first swing bisected two demon imps at the hip, their torsos flying away and painting the walls of the small canyon a darker red, and continued around himself as he spun like a top to catch the demon leaping at him from behind. Guts caught a ball of fire with the flat of his sword and quickly slammed his shoulder into the revenant that had thrown it, then turned to fend off another imp as the revenant's head cracked against the stone, killing it. The imp was punched once, twice, and Guts swung once again when he had room, this time cutting down three demons in a single swing. He stabbed through the torso of the next revenant and lifted it above his head, yanking on its arm to drag it even further down his blade. It screamed in pain but was cut off when he pulled it off of his sword sideways, leaving it in two pieces to die slowly.

He soaked himself in demon blood, the tattoos on his back growing warm from the use of magic, and he laughed at a demon that had managed to puncture his left bicep with a claw. He clenched the demon's fingers on the opposite side of his wound, trapping it, and opened up the jaw on his helmet to bite its head off. Guts threw his head back, launching the decapitated head into the air, and sliced it in half as it came down. By then the wound was gone and the hole in his armor had fixed itself. Too late, the demons realized what they were up against, and turned to run.

"I don't think so," Guts said, his toothy smile growing wide and sinister. He leaped after them, flying sideways through the air and breaking his legs with the jump. Two demons were split down the middle, crown to crotch before he landed in front of the group, legs healed. He was drenched in demon gore, same as the sword he raised to point at the group of shivering demons. He laughed at them. "I've faced tougher humans than you worms! Fight me! Fight me! Fight ME!" he screamed at them, bludgeoning another demon in half with his sword for every proclamation. It was not elegant, nor dignified. It was slaughter and butchery.

'I need to be faster,' Guts thought to himself after killing the rest of the demons. He was currently sprinting through the maze of rocks that was hell. He drew his shotgun when a new gathering of hellspawn came into view. 'This time I won't waste any time talking to them.'

Their chaos was predictable. On the battlefield on his homeland Guts had to worry about huge forces moving and fighting as one. In hell, it was easy to guess that the demons would run straight towards him, even if they weren't organized. As a matter of fact, it was easier to deal with a disorganized enemy. All of this ran through the back of his mind as he fought.

The demons were in a panic; any cuts or holes they made on Guts were gone by the time he turned around and despite losing so much blood that there was more of his than the demons' in the puddles in the dirt, he was still as fast and dangerous as he was before the fight. One of them shouted for help, scream echoing through the dilapidated buildings and crumbling temples. Guts smiled beneath his helmet.

The bigger demons had been summoned, barons and knights taking their time in getting to the fight. Guts finished off the small ones and then ran to meet the bigger threat. Despite coming under fire from six different directions, Guts was quick enough to dodge a majority of the energy blasts. Those that scraped him didn't leave much damage behind, and he was quickly rid of those injuries.

"Guts, clear the line of fire, northeast-southwest," VEGA said over the radio. He ran sideways of the line VEGA had claimed and watched as the dragon flew overhead. Flame engulfed the towering demons, and they screamed in agony when they began burning alive.

"I'll take it from here, thanks VEGA," Guts said, sprinting towards the dying demons to finish them off. Sam suddenly came on the radio.

"Guts, I need some help! I'm being overrun in a temple west of your position, hurry!"

"Got it," Guts said, heading off to help. Diced corpses were left in his wake as he traveled. He slowed down when he felt the energy in his tattoo reach a low point. His legs were extraordinarily strong now from all the healing his bones had done, but the speeds he ran at were still too much for his body. Though he was limited by this, he still reached the temple in an impressive time and quickly recharged the magic with more demon blood.

"Nice timing," Sam said, popping another demon skull. "More and more just kept showing up."

"It's a real shame these demons don't go away with sunlight," Guts commented, "it would make things easier if we had some downtime." The wave of hellspawn ended, and they had a chance to get out of the temple. Sam got an idea.

"VEGA, do you think you can collapse the temple Guts and I just got out of?" she asked. Her answer was a giant lizard slamming into the side of said temple with the entirety of his weight, crushing it and every surviving demon in it. "Thanks, VEGA."

"Some of them are crawling away from the rubble, let's get them," Guts said, readying his sword. They separated to different sides of the stone heap and shot or slashed any demon that poked out their head for the next few minutes, then ran in opposite directions to continue fighting.

Only VEGA saw the effect they were all having on hell. Even the demons they weren't killing were beginning to choke on the energy-drained air, and fewer demons were being born from the pits in the earth, drained of argent and becoming pools of death. Slowly, they were killing hell, using its own power against it. However, there was a hiccup.

"Everyone, rendezvous on my position, there's a problem," VEGA said over the radio. He was looking at a large stone door with a huge deposit of argent energy behind it.


	11. Let's Split Up and Look For Clues

**Hello readers, I'm back. To explain my absence, I lost interest in my writing for a while and was very, _very_ busy with the complications of life. However, I have no excuses. It's been an entire year since any of my stories have gotten an update, and the trend stops now. I intend to write until my hands catch fire, and this new chapter is fresh off the presses. Please enjoy it, and the chapters soon to follow.**

* * *

Joseph was back in his element: him against the forces of hell. Sure, there were other people slaying demons in the distance, but it felt like just him for the moment. A strange peace descended over him beneath his angered exterior, and despite a pounding heart and heavy breath, he felt calm. Maybe after a few millennia, his body was now used to the adrenaline such that it had no effect on his mind anymore. He didn't really care but it was an interesting thought.

The shotgun in his hands was locked and loaded and came to bear on the first demon he spotted, splattering brain matter and blood over the hell spawn behind it. Their anger sparked by the death of one of their own, the demons charged, lacking the instinct to run that would have spared their lives for a few more seconds. The Slayer was efficient and ruthless, shooting or tearing them to pieces, and ripping their flesh with his own hands. When he brought out the chainsaw, the demons' chances of survival dropped from 'minimal' to 'zero.' He left chunks of bone and a new lake of blood behind, islands of gore and spent shells breaking the pool of red.

One thing that always gave him trouble, just a little, was the big demons. Barons and Hell Knights were tanks and bullet sponges, always had been. These thoughts went through his mind as he flew through the air, having just been blindsided by a Baron backhanding him from behind a corner into a wall. He stood up from the rubble ready to fight and dodged the slam of the Baron's fist into the ground. He used the split second to look around, finding Unwilling and a Cyberdemon closing in on his fight with the Baron. Without turning around he retrieved a rocket launcher from his warp pack and brought it to bear on the Baron, destroying its head with a single shot.

The corpse slid towards his turned back across the floor, but he just raised a single foot to step on its shoulder as he stared down the demonic force. Quiet fear permeated the room. In the silence, Joseph chuckled darkly, taunting the demons. The Cyberdemon roared at him, and the demons attacked. Joseph exchanged his rocket launcher for the chainsaw once again and began whirling about the room as both he and the appliance were roaring. What few scratches were placed on his armor mended in calm moments thanks to argent energy, and almost no attacks even reached his skin.

He sprinted past the back of the Cyberdemon, slashing the backs of its knees, and then ran around to its front to cleave its head in two by shoving the chainsaw into its howling mouth and yanking upwards. Its cries of pain silenced, it fell forwards onto three Unwilling, killing them. Joseph got tired of the chainsaw, fun as it was, and pulled out his chain gun to replace it and finish cleaning up the demons. Then he got a message from VEGA, and ran towards the unknown threat.

* * *

For the first time in Lords knew how long, Carmina felt truly alive. The heat of battle no longer a chore, but a pleasure. She delighted in the gore and swept across the ranks of demons with a smile beneath her warped helmet. Any glimpses she caught of herself in reflections showed what looked like the Soul of Cinder made anew, armor welded against her body and glowing with power. With a chuckle at the sentimentality, she swapped out her current weapon for the Twisted Greatsword to complete the look.

A few swings of the weapon later, a flash blinded her mind's eye and filled her head with knowledge. She understood things about her old world that had eluded her for millennia (she definitely beat Joseph in age, the time frame was a lot bigger than she first thought), and about the true power she now wielded. Needless to say, shit got real.

Everyone turned to look towards the massive pillar of white-hot fire that had erupted a few moments ago, blazing hot even from hundreds of yards away. VEGA analyzed the anomaly, discovering Carmina at its center and acting as the source, and informed everyone else of the development.

"Carmina is the cause of the anomaly, no need to panic; she appears to be in control of the situation," he said, the fire dissipating as he spoke, replaced by flashes of light from near the same place. "Continue fighting everyone."

Had any demonic historians been present, more than likely a new legend would have been born right then and there with Carmina as the focus. As it so happens, every demonic historian had already been slaughtered much earlier at the start of the battle, mixed in with the regular droves.

The condensed power of her entire world, every soul both light and dark resting in her bosom, and the knowledge of every magic and miracle at her fingertips made Carmina a monster in this battle. She had already been the last one standing in her own world, and she would be the last one left standing in this one. Well, except for her friends, they would survive too.

Her entire body was wreathed in the white fire from earlier, the same true for her sword, and she didn't even need to get close to the demons to kill them. She threw lines of fire like wires across the battlefield, burning through metal and muscle easily. The large demons were the only ones able to get close to her but they were mowed down as soon as they arrived by singular swings of her sword.

They demons further away were taken care of by her magic. Spears of lightning and blue sped away into demon hearts and brains, destroying souls and bodies. Who needs a pyromancy glove or a catalyst when you've eaten the souls of the people that made those magics? The demons began to peter out, and then VEGA called her.

* * *

Chara stuck close to Frisk in this fight. Vines coated in thorns speared, drilled, and whipped everything coming close. Whatever somehow made it through that was met with cleaver and hatchet. They didn't need strategies to kill demons, they had power.

Chara found it ironic that now, when she had more power than she ever could have dreamed of in the Underground, she was using it to do good instead of destroying timelines. She'd even once called herself a demon, but she was weak sauce compared to the evil crap these guys did.

"I'm getting bored playing guard dog, you mind if I run out there, Frisk?" Chara asked. The vines parted around them.

"Be my guest, I'm fine over here," Frisk replied, smiling as her friend(?) dashed out cackling with glee and splitting apart demons as she went

"Best reset ever!" Chara yelled, whooping in joy as she gave in to her bloodlust and began moving even faster, ignoring biology to swing wildly around herself without regard for every joint in her body dislocating and popping back into place repeatedly as she dashed, flexed, and swung at demon after demon.

'She fights more like a puppet on strings than a conscious human,' Frisk thought, then giggled at the irony. And then VEGA called.

* * *

Isaac had fought Necromorphs on three separate occasions and lived to tell about it. He had been fighting for survival then, but now-

"Holy shit this is fun!" he yelled. "Those lucky bastards get to fight these things every day?"

"Open channel, dumbass," Guts grunted, but there was a chuckle in his tone, even if it was buried under four feet of gravel.

"Sorry, Guts, I'll keep my SHEER JOY off of the channel from now on!" he said, laughing as he impaled an imp onto another demon's claws with his kinesis module, and channeled the argent along his suit to fill his weapons. He didn't know when he figured out he could manipulate argent, but it was fun.

"Come on, you guys have nothing on Necromorphs, and they're dead!" Isaac taunted, shooting the arms off of another demon out of habit. In truth, the mob of disorganized monsters clamoring to be the first to rip him limb from limb was familiar after the Necromorphs, but the demons had a much weaker constitution. They felt pain, got weaker from losing body parts and blood, and could be eliminated by shooting vital areas, things he was used to having to work around when surviving the outbreaks. It really put things into perspective when he found actual hell easier to deal with than the bullshit of his own universe.

For some demons he would shoot their legs off and stomp in their skulls; others were taken apart by the chunk, arms removed and torsos filled with holes before they were allowed to die. He switched between weapons frequently, old favorites taking the spotlight. Still, the allure of his customized weapons was strong and he found them in his hands just as often. Javelins, saws, and spent cartridges littered the ground like leaves among the corpses of the cooling battlefield, argent energy slowly siphoning towards the Marker killer and refilling his pockets with ammo.

Isaac held a frantically squirming imp in one hand above the ground, getting a good look at his enemy. It was the last one alive in this area, and he hadn't had the opportunity to really look at these demons before now: corded muscle under orange skin, glowing eyes, talons, and enough teeth to make piranhas jealous. Truly an intimidating enemy, if he wasn't already used to so much worse.

"Your whole "ultimate evil" shtick kinda loses steam compared to Necromorphs. Those fuckers are scary, but you guys are underwhelming in comparison," Isaac said, thinking out loud. The demon was unable to scratch at anything meaningful, protected by armor as Isaac was, but still fruitlessly tried to escape the engineer's steely grip. "I'm not knocking Joseph's skill to fight off you guys for two millennia, but I had a harder time walking down a hallway than I did winning this fight. See ya later, freak." A loud snap silenced the demon's flailing, and the creature went limp. Isaac tossed aside the corpse to land it among the hundreds of similar ones and received VEGA's message.

* * *

After parting ways with Guts, Sam was putting her lone wolf experience to good use. She hunted groups from long distance with a sniper and got up close with a shotgun, summoning weapons as the situation called for it. Her mind, while focused on her actions, was so used to these sorts of tasks that it also wandered.

"What's everyone else doing right now? Carmina seems to have gotten an upgrade, I'll have to ask her about that. I guess I'm immortal now thanks to this mark. Is everyone actually from different universes? Could they really not come up with a different acronym for this rocket launcher other than SPNKR? It practically spells out Spanker, and that's just embarrassing." She dwelled on that last one for a moment, using those seconds to blow away most of another group with the weapon in question. "I guess one way to interpret the name is that you're using it to spank the enemy, but that's still a bit weird."

Her full attention was suddenly on the three Mancubus demons in front of her, jiggling with entire liposuction clinics' worth of fat for each one, and she decided to put herself to the test and kill each one in a different way. When the first one raised its arm cannon to attack, she dashed forwards in a low position, energy sword hissing to life in her hand as she sprinted. The other two demons spread out and also brought their cannons to bear, but by then she'd reached the first one.

She batted aside the weapon in time to direct the shot into the air, and began slashing the Mancubus on the arms and enormous stomach with the sword; flesh burned under the touch of solid plasma, and the smoke of this union was filled with the vocal agony of the demon crying out in pain. Sam knew how bad plasma burned and didn't envy the demon this feeling.

She leaped backward off of the demon in time to dodge the cannon shots of the other two demons, inadvertently making them blow apart their comrade as she set her sights on the second demon, pulling out a grenade and a knife sharp enough to pierce armor. Sam gouged out the demon's eyes first, shoving the live grenade into its screaming mouth and slitting its throat as she fell off, raising an arm to protect herself from the shrapnel and gore that blasted against her armor at high speed.

The last demon growled as Sam retrieved an unassuming pistol and a shotgun for the last encounter, the first in her left hand and the latter in her right. She cut off its attack with a round from the shotgun, Soellkraft buckshot slamming the weapon into the dirt as she fired the pistol at its unarmored joints. It dropped to its knees before her, weakly raising its cannon before the arm was blasted off at the elbow. She shoved her pistol into its mouth and shot through the demon's brain three times in quick succession; finally put out of its misery, the Mancubus fell backward dead before it even hit the ground. Then she received a message from VEGA, and sprinted towards his location.


End file.
